Drawing: Oil Pastels and Colored Pencils

Oil Pastels and Colored Pencils are both wax based, blend beautifully, have rich colors, and work well together. I used them with acrylic and gouache paint in my mixed media animals and journey paintings when I did Art Fairs in Chicago. With their wax base, plus oil pastels have added oil, they become a resist to watercolor, creating wonderful texture. Let’s go over some basic blending techniques, starting with Prismacolor Colored Pencils. Click on this video to see how it’s done.

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Oil Pastels have a wax + oil base to make them super creamy. The colors are gorgeous, they flow on and can be blended in many ways. Watch this video to see some samples.

I make grid of boxes by measuring a 9″ x 12″ paper into 3rds vertically, and in 1/2 horizontally. You can also fold your paper into 3rds and then 1/2. Within this grid, I draw rectangles. I then erase the grid so that I can label each box. It becomes a reference sample for colored pencil and oil pastel techniques. Don’t make them too small.

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Bonus Plus: Use Olive Oil to blend oil pastels. It works just fine. Here’ how it’s done. Marker Paper ends up looking like vellum and the oil pastels Glow!

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Here’s a video of how I create a painting by blending oil pastels and colored pencils. ‘Ancient Land’, sprayed with fixative when completed, works great!

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Completed paintings shouldn’t touch the glass in a frame. They must always be set back with a double mat, or shadow box. Oil Pastels are never fully dry, but do become firmer and harder over time. Acrylic over them is still a resist technique for texture, and won’t protect the pastel. Here are some recent fixatives and links. Charcoal fixative is resin, not good for pastel. Some are known to darken or dull the colors you’ve created.

Sennelier D’Artigny Oil Pastel Fixative, a shiny sheen to fix and harden oil pastels. It can take 3-4 applications before full protecting from smudging. The paper or brand of oil pastels can effect the sprays also. Work with proper ventilation, don’t breathe it in, spray lightly, & follow directions on cans.

Double Bonus: Watch an amazing Portrait Artist use colored pencil blending on a Face. https://youtu.be/hRJoO2EAj5Y