Help me fall in love with Oil Pastels

r ranson wrote:in the end, I decided that the cost of the pentel set wasn't worth the bother of returning it.  This might have been a mistake, but I decided to swatch them out and see if they smell worse with use (they do).



They are indeed firmer than what I've tried before.  They also make these little crumbs which muddy up the next colour.  I also can't make them smudge together with my finger, but they do smudge together when I put a new colour on top of old ones.

Now I can't return them.  But I'm also thinking if the pastels I'm using now are melting in my hand in the winter, it won't be fun to use in the summer.  So maybe using this cheap set outside in the summer might be an option.  

wear gloves. They are lovely to work with. It isa drag. Answers anyone?

r ranson wrote:They are indeed firmer than what I've tried before.  They also make these little crumbs which muddy up the next colour.  

I thought my whole life (until last year when we got nice student grade pastels) that they were supposed to make a huge mess of crumbs and be hard to blend and so on. I couldn't figure out how artists could create such beautiful pictures from them. This is why even kids deserve to use decent quality materials.

Is there a trick to using oil pastels in a sketchbook without them smearing later?

In high school, we used to spray our pastel art with hair spray....but I'm not sure I'd want to do that. I'm pretty sure my Jr High self wasn't keen on it, either. My old pastel drawings have normal paper or tissue paper on top of them, so that they didn't smear onto other things

I was thinking of my giant watercolour sketchbook.  I would still want to be able to draw and paint on other parts of the page, so I'm not sure if a spray is the path for me.  

Hopefully, there are other options.  

What if I taped a piece of wax paper between the pages?

r ranson wrote:I was thinking of my giant watercolour sketchbook.  I would still want to be able to draw and paint on other parts of the page, so I'm not sure if a spray is the path for me.  

Hopefully, there are other options.  

What if I taped a piece of wax paper between the pages?

I am thinking of the really old illustrated books I've seen and how they have thin parchment-like paper on top of each illustrated page. Parchment might work too.

I've got a big roll of tracing paper.   Would that work?

r ranson wrote:I've got a big roll of tracing paper.   Would that work?

That seems like a great idea! Especially since you have it on hand. Maybe try it out with a single sheet over a piece of art and put something on top and see how much oil seeps through after a week. That way if it doesn't work, it doesn't ruin pages in a sketch book.

I got a second (I'm not counting that gasoline set) set of pastels.  



I like this even better than the Haiya set as it's not as soft but soft enough that it doesn't crumble and I can still use a palette knife to add bits to the final layer.  

Very tempted to buy another set to try it out.  I am starting to enjoy this medium a lot.  I just have trouble figuring out what to paint.  

The first oil pastels were made in Japan by the Sakura company for use in schools in 1925.  Sakura still makes two lines of oil pastels - Specialist and Expressionist.  The Specialist line is very hard, the Expressionist line are student grade and softer.  They would be an excellent set to try.  They are non toxic.  

Sennelier, made in France, are the softest; they are lightfast, but use some toxic pigments like cadmiums and cobalts.  Their website has a chart with pigment numbers. They are expensive. Mungyo Artist Gallery are made in Korea.  They are slightly firmer than Sennelier, similar to Caran D'Ache.  They are my favorite, non toxic and lightfast, but no pigment info available.  Caran d'ache makes Neopastels in Switzerland, slightly harder than Mungyo Artist Gallery, softer than Sakura Specialist.  They are non toxic and lightfast, pigment info available, and very expensive.

All of them are a mix of wax, oil and pigment.  The more expensive brands use lightfast pigments in higher concentration.  Sennelier sells a spray you can use to seal finished paintings.  I just frame them behind glass with a mat to keep the painting off the glass.  I use cotton watercolor paper with two coats of  Colourfix pastel primer, which gives the paper a fine sandpaper texture that holds lots of layers of color.

I don't buy art supplies from China because of lightfast concerns and quality issues.  I highly recommend Mungyo artist gallery and Sakura Expressionist. They are fabulous and affordable.  

Can oil pastels go off?

One set has a 5 year expiry date.   The other doesn't mention how long it will last.

What does too old look like for oil pastels?

If you're just experimenting I have used a stiff stencil brush with oil pastels. That way you aren't melting the stick in your hand. Sometimes shifting from one color to another the colors blend nicely. I use parchment paper to cover a piece in progress in a tablet.  A rag to clean of the brush off if you need to.

These little 3 inch studies are helping me build confidence with this medium.



The size is small enough,  I can experiment.   What I'm learning with oil pastels transfers to my watercolour painting.

Where I'm struggling this week is that the oil pastels colours are so vibrant,  it is hard to see the values. It takes a lot more experimenting to get them right than with watercolour.

What is a non-drying oil?  Why is it used instead of like oil paint oil?

ray Bunbury wrote:What is a non-drying oil?  Why is it used instead of like oil paint oil?

I think drying oils are ones like linseed, walnut, and tung oil. They harden (I believe they do this through oxidation), rather than staying wet.

A non-drying oil would probably be any of the oils that don't do that. Olive oil and coconut would be non-drying. I found a list here: Wikipedia article on non-drying oil

I'm not sure why you'd want a non-drying oil in your pastels, though!

It has been difficult to find good ingredient information for the main brand oil pastels,  but they all agree the thing that makes oil pastels different from other mediums is the non drying oil.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_pastel

An oil pastel is a painting and drawing medium formed into a stick which consists of pigment mixed with a binder mixture of non-drying oil and wax. Oil pastel is a type of pastel. They differ from other pastel sticks which are made with a gum or methyl cellulose binder, and from wax crayons which are made without oil

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-drying_oil

A non-drying oil is an oil which does not harden and remains liquid when it is exposed to air. This is as opposed to a drying oil, which hardens (through polymerization) completely, or a semi-drying oil, which partially hardens. Oils with an iodine number of less than 115 are considered non-drying.

https://www.realmilkpaint.com/blog/tips/drying-oil-vs-nondrying-oil-which-is-right-for-you/
Has a list of natural non drying oils.

Almond oil
Babassu oil
Baobab oil
Cocoa butter
Coconut oil
Macadamia oil
Nahar seed oil
Mineral oil
Olive oil
Peanut oil

I thought non drying means it won't go solid, but I have left olive oil in a bowl lamp and a year later,  it is a solid, non greasy mass.  Fully oxidised.

I'm thinking they need the non-drying oils to keep the pastel soft. If the oil hardened, it wouldn't be smearable.

I'm thinking about chapstick, and how it's made with beeswax and a non-drying oil (like coconut oil or shea butter or cocoa butter). That allows the chapstick to be smearable on your lips. Maybe pastels are like pigmented chapstick that you smear on paper to make colors.

Which makes me wonder, could a pastel artwork be misted with a drying oil to make it not as smearable when you're done?

Today is spent trying to figure out the difference between "oil pastels" and "wax pastels"

I have succeeded in confusing myself even more than when I started.  

Any ideas what the difference is?  

I'm thinking that maybe wax pastels have a higher wax percentage, while oil pastels have a higher oil percentage? So, wax pastels might be somewhere between a crayon and oil pastel?

We think about crayons as being terrible to work with, because most kids crayons are far too waxy and don't have enough pigment. But good crayons do lay down color nicely, and they don't smear easily like pastels.

Colored pencils, wax pastels, oil pastels are all a blend of pigment plus oil and wax as a binder.  More wax in wax pastels and colored pencils, more oil in oil pastels.  The wax and oil are just a way of holding pigment. Cheaper products have cheaper pigments and less pigment.  Usually not lightfast.  Cheaper products use cheaper oils and waxes, and will change over time, so they have a shorter lifespan. Cheaper oil pastels tend to get gummy.  Some colors yellow. Expensive products use lightfast pigments and high quality oils and waxes.  Artist grade will last a long time - my mungyo oil pastels are 15 years old and have not changed.  I have caran d'ache and sennelier too, but they're only 5 years old.  No changes.  

I use colored pencils to add details to oil pastel works.  I use wax pastels to lay in initial layers on colored pencil works - mineral spirits on a cotton swab help with blending.  Then I can put in 2 or 3 more layers with colored pencil.  It saves a lot of time.  

Two wax pastels I have are Koh-I-Noor hard pastels and Caran D'Ache neocolor.  Both are like crayons, but more pigmented.  Caran d'ache are the cadillacs - they are very pigmented.  Also I can order individual colors when I use one up.

I burnt the first four attempts.  Oil pastel on paper is awesome at starting the woodstove.  

We are left with attempt number five.



Daffodils are surprisingly difficult.  A yellow translucent petal casts a shadow on another translucent yellow petal.  And this shadow is a blue-yellow.  NOT green.  But blue-yellow.  (spoiler - purple worked to make the colour/value I wanted)  It took me ages to figure out how to achieve that with oil pastels and I'm still not all that happy with the results.

I'm still struggling with values and oil pastels so I painted a different daffodil in watercolour.  

Because I'm the kind of person who reads through the Wet Canvas archives when learning art.

I stumbled on this thread about the difference between oil and wax pastels.  

https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/topic/wax-versus-oil-pastel/

Not much that hasn't been said here already,  but said in a different way.

How come some days colours blend together and other days they try to lift off the paper and rather stick to my hand?

Is it colours?  My hand?  Temperature?   Something else?

Any combination of all the above, as well as possibly humidity, and even the slight variations in the pressure used, from one day to the next, would be my guess.

I have a long way to go before I get good enough at this, but I'm loving it more than I expected.

These little studies are a lot of fun and can be completed in a morning while I drink my coffee.




It also goes well with nature journaling as it helps me look closely at the flower.

The only issue is that the flowers move and change as the daylight hits them.  Very inconsiderate.

how to clean paper blending sticks after using them for oil pastels?  

I just sharpened them...

Carla Burke wrote:I just sharpened them...

In a pencil sharpener?

Yes - with a new blade in it.

Never used paper blending tools before so I didn't know we could sharpen them.

Thanks.

But, where are the tacos and bacon and piggies and snacks?! Why draw pretty flowers when you could draw tasty-tasty bacon...or even cute piggies!

r ranson wrote:Never used paper blending tools before so I didn't know we could sharpen them.

Thanks.

My pleasure. Sorry for being so short, yesterday - I was working harder than usual, and only popping in here, for a couple minutes at a time. You can use a pencil sharpener, razor blade, box knife, or other sharp blade. You can also change the shape of the tip, for different effects, if you like.

Short and to the point is good for blending stumps.

(Attempting a joke)

Look at those beautiful colors!

What a beautiful video! I'm so happy for taking the time to watch it - thank you, Jenny! It's intriguing to think about going out and pulling from what is available on my own land, and building my own pastels, based on their process, even if I'd have to formulate the base, from scratch. I HIGHLY doubt I'd ever actual do it, but it it's fun to think about, and give me a much greater appreciation of both the medium and its artisan creators.