How to use oil pastels

Oil pastels can be used in various techniques.

Alla prima - drawing directly with the sticks in same way as one would use oil colors with a brush.The work will look very similar to a traditional oil painting. There are many tools,knifes sticks or especially for oil pastels designed tools like the color shapers.

Both works here are done with Sennelier oil pastels. These are fairly small pieces of ca. 7" height, the support is a 220gr/sqm paper primed with abstract patterns of thin oil color. I let those sheets dry for some weeks until the surface is not tacky anymore. Click on the images to see larger versions, even little impastos are possible with oil pastels. I have not tried the "giant" version of the oil pastels sticks yet, but certainly this effect will even stronger when using the big sticks. Sennelier has a wide range of different greys, which I madly love. I have all of them including my favorite mouse grey:).

For a short time I was member of the OPS and they did a short interview with me. I saved the text as PDF -file and you can read it here: Interview on oil pastels It contains a couple of images of my rather spartanic gear at that time. The chair is broken meantime.

By the way: The best protection for oil pastel work is framing under glass with a passepartout thick enough to make sure that the surface of the oil pastels do not touch the glass (see framed work above).

Oil pastels can be combined with many other media to great mixed media work. I have used oil pastels as final layers on water colour, gouache and acrylics.
The illustration shown here is a mixed media work I did outdoors on site. It shows the castle Hohenaschau, in Bavaria. I attended several workshops at the private summer academy Hohenaschau nearby. I did this in the early morning before taking classes.
The format is 60X40 cm on a water color paper of 220 gr/sqm.

Some artists use oil pastels in thin layers to get a kind of optical blending. Certain oil pastels can be even polished a bit to get a shiny surface. The pastels or better the crayons that can be polished contain more wax than others. Unfortunately those wax crayons are mostly less durable than others. I know however of one exception. There is a brand called Stockmar. They manufacture a great quality of wax crayons which are perfect for this kind of work.
Also Caran d'Ache Neocolor pastels can be used for that purpose (see image),but not all of their colours will be very light fast.

Meantime I have quite a collection of oil pastel brands to work with and I got curious myself how would those colours compare if I set them next to each other. Would the quality and price difference become visible ?

Below you see a chart that I did. I selected 4 primary colours ,yellow,blue,green and red. I tried to apply just as much color as need to get maximum opacity at least in some spots of the square. Explanations are given below the chart.



On first sight differences are hard to see, but on closer examination and with my further explanations the differences will get clearer.
The brands compared are:
1. Guardi, a low budget standard oil pastel or crayon
2. Homerun, a low budget oil pastel from Sri Lanka
3. Neocolor 1 by Caran d'Ache
4. Neococlor II by Caran d'Ache
5. Neopastel by Caran d'Ache
6. Sennelier
7. Stockmar, a very old set of mine
8. Stockmar a very new set

As oil pastels consist of colour pigment and binders, this mix will make the difference in opacity, hardness and lightfastness. I cannot and did not want to test lightfastness this comparison is a simple test to get a basic idea of the differences. As to prices there are big differences if you set the numbers 1 and 2 at 100% (price ca. 3-4 Euros or 5-7 USD for a 12 colour set) the numbers 3,4,5 and 7,8 will be at ca. 400-500% and Sennelier will be at around 7-800% as the sticks are smaller compared to the other brands.

The brands in detail

1. The Guardi set is medium hard, the colours built little flakes as you can see in the blue and green field, also the opacity especially in the green field was not as good as in yellow and red.
The flakes are typical for these cheaper brands, even though the colour sticks are relatively hard not all colour will be taken by the paper.

2. The Homerun set is softer than the previous one, a property that I like, as you may notice the colours are slightly less brilliant or muted compared to the Guardi. The opacity is better, it is easier to cover the paper when the colour stick is softer.

3. Neocolor 1 is a fairly hard color. The opacity and saturation of the color is better than with No.1. and 2. There is only litle tendency
to built flakes,

4. Neocolor II (2) The water soluble quality, is softer and therefore a saturated colorfield is fairly quickly achieved with less effort and movements on the paper. Look at the yellow and blue field.

5. Neopastel, the artist oil pastel,s are the softest so far. Far less pressure is required to get the same results as with the other qualities. As to opacity and colour saturation there is not much difference visible between Neocolor 2 and Neopastel. From the looks of the blue field I would guess that Neopastel has again a bit more pigment load.

6. The Sennelier colours are in a different league. Unfortunately I did not have the proper green hue available so I used a bluesh hue instead. The crossed out yellow field can be neglected, I made a mistake and used a pale yellow by Caran d'Ache there.
The Sennelier colors are very soft, almost like a hardened oil colour cream. Compared to the Neopastel one can create a thick color layers even quicker. These colours are definately a medium for experienced and ambitious users as they are not easy to handle.

7./8. The Stockmar colours are the hardest of all. Especially in the green field of the old set No.7 you can see that it was difficult to cover the paper fully. The new set has a slightly different green which is indeed a bit better than the old version.
The Stockmar colors are great for quick line drawings, covering bigger fields can get a bit tedious. Stockmar colours are great to work in transparent layers.

So after all one can say that you can get nice oil pastels at surprising low costs already. My recommendation for those who want to buy a set as a gift for children is to choose a big set with hard or medium hard colours. Children often press the colours quite a bit on the paper and the softer ones will not be very suitable for them. Also I have noticed that children love to have a big colour sets as the like to experiment with and explore colours in all kinds of unusual combinations. If you want to be able to remove colour stains from furnishings a watersoluble version is probably the best choice.

If you are looking for a gift for an experient or ambitious user I would rather commend to buy a small set of artist oil pastels.

The most interesting, but also the most difficult part of working with oil pastels is the mixing or blending. It is not possible to produce a certain color as simple as it is in a liquid medium like water color or acrylic or traditional oil colors.
In fact one needs many different oil pastel sticks in order to produce a wide range of color hues and tonalities. Working with oil pastels forces to experiment with unusual color combinations to get the wanted mixture or colour. The colours of oil pastels are very strong and in pure combinations they can be quite agressive. The plein air sketch below demonstrates that a bit. The green is very dominant and strong not to say agressive. I should have broken that color to a more natural, softer green.

The leading oil pastel manufacturers like Holbein and Sennelier have developed a big number of different colors and hues that allow endless combinations.

As a mixed colour is obtained mostly by layering the colours in rubbing one on top of the other a lot of exercise is necessary to get an understanding what works best.
For example if you want to depict a shadow on an ochre plane lets say a wall, it makes a difference whether you put the colour of the shadow on top of the ochre or the other way round.

From my experiences the best results are obtained with a maximum of 2 -3 colors. If you have to put more then 3 colours on top of each other the result tends to get muddy. After some time you will learn which effect certain colours on top of others will make or not.
I have learned a lot about colours and colour mixing with trial and error from these exercises with oil pastels.

In the little plein air study (right) I managed to use the greens in a better way. But the colours of the sky can be a challenge too. Click on the image to see a large version. I used a colour shaper to form details and for blending colour layers which each other.

Also you will learn that there are softer and harder oil pastels and this might influence the use. There are colours with a high opacity and other with a more transparent character.

The cheaper brands contain more wax and are harder than the expensive professional brands like Holbein and Sennelier. I prefer to work outdoors and in summer with high temperatures the Sennelier oil pastels get very soft not to say close to liquid. Therefore I always have a cloth with me to protect the box from direct sunshine

This oilpastel in small size (ca.7X10) was created during a plein air painting workshop held by the incredible Artist Christopher Lehmpfuhl at Hohwacht,Germany, close to the Ostsee.
See below a detail of the rich structure that can be achieved with Sennelier oil pastels.

This is an oil pastel sketch done on site with a cheap landscape set of oil pastels. These pastels are great if you want to capture a subject quickly.

These greeting cards were done with oil pastels on top of cut outs of monotype prints. With gouache and oil pastels the floral impression was developed further. One piece is a partly cut out collage which I attached to another colored sheet.

Art card Season's greetings ! by editionha
Make a unique note card onine with Zazzle

Art card Season's greetings ! by editionha
Create personalized note cards with zazzle

It is very useful to keep notes about the colours you have in your set and which colours you like best or need often. During use the labels are lost and if you do not know the specific number of that colour it might be difficult to obtain it again.. So I recommend keeping a list with small colour spots together with the colour codes. When you need to buy the colour again you can identify the code easy.


This is my plastic box for oil pastels. After some time all the sticks look the same and it is impossible to identify the colour number on the labels or wrapping.
If I need to reorder I simply put a short stroke on a piece of paper with the final little piece and compare it with my colour chart and list of numbers.
In the box I have grouped the oil pastels by colours (whites, yellows, blues, reds ...)in these little compartments which are originally made for screws or nails.

On the left there is a piece of paper board 220 gr/sqm primed with some oil colours and the little colour shaper that I use.

I did this big oil pastel with a width of ca. 150 cm when I was a student around 1975 or so as decoration for my room. At that time I used a French oil pastel brand which does not exists any more I believe. Even though the colours were cheap it survived in acceptable condition. However it is obvious that those pinks and purples and light reds did fade considerably.

Depending on the pigment and the amount of pigment i.e. the concentration of pigment the colours will be more or less lightfast. I recommend to get a data sheet from the producer which will tell you which colours are exposed to quicker fading and which will fade very slowly.
Find here the Sennelier color chart for oil pastels
Have a look at the colours No.7,10,24,27 and 38. These are very nice colours but they rate only one star as to light fastness. Therefore I would try to avoid the use of these colours.

Cheap oil crayons can fade within weeks or months when exposed to normal indoor daylight.
Especially the light hues and particularly all red or pink hues tend to fade rather quickly. For example "permanent red" is unfortunately everything else, but permanent. Also "rose madder" for example is not light fast. Some blues and violets are also not very permanent.

The most lightfast pigments are those based on iron oxide, so called earth tones:
ochre, umber, green earth, burnt siena and caput mortuum for example.

The expensive brands as Holbein and Sennelier cannot be compared with the cheap brands. Their "rose madder" will last much, much longer i.e. decades because the concentration and the quality of the pigments are much better. For that reason these qualities are also much higher in price.

I use all types of oil pastels or crayons depending on the situation and work I want to do. The expensive high quality brands are fine, but sometimes I want and need a harder oil pastel.

Art card
Buttercup flowers by editionha

Inexpensive oil crayons are great for exercises or sketchbook work, which is not exposed to natural light too much. Also I like to use this type of oil pastels for mixed media work I do mainly for reproduction purpose in a small format that it fits to a standard size scanner.

For artwork which shall be sold as originals and long time exposure in frames there are only Holbein and Sennelier in my opinion. A Holbein or Sennelier oil pastel framed under UV-protection glass is the best choice from my point of view. In view of the prices for Sennelier oil pastels which are available in Europe I have done preferably small works, the typical plein air pochade size of 8X10 inches.

The oil pastels by Carand'Ache are somewhat in a middle position. In their handling they are very similar to low budget crayons, but their price is higher. I was not able to evaluate whether the higher price is justified by higher longevity yet. I use also Carand'Ache for sketchbook work and when I want harder and also more transparent layers.

This is my biggest plein air oil pastel so far (20"X24"). It is possible to do larger works with oil pastels too. But it is exhausting especially when you use the small oil pastel sticks. Sennelier has also so called "Giant"-sticks,but it would cost a fortune to buy all those colors in Giant-Format.

In general any paper can be used as support for an oil pastel painting. However some are more suitable than others because of the material properties.

1. Longevity
I recommend not using cheap paper or coloured papers which will not stand the test of time. Fading underground colours for example can be a bad experience. So I would use lightfast and archival papers even for sketches. The holiday sketch with palm trees was done on brown craft paper sold for pastel work. Unfortunately it was only imitation craft and the paper fades quickly.

2. Thickness
It is rather difficult to work on thin papers with oil pastels. The paper might not be firm enough to withstand the mechanical forces applied when doing a gesture drawing for example. Also later presentation or framing might be difficult.
A strong paper/board from 200 gr/sqm upwards seems suitable to me.

3. Type of paper
If the paper fulfils the criteria above any paper could be used and it is very rewarding to experiment with various papers until you have found the one you like best.

4. Priming of the paper
Working on white paper with oil pastels is possible and you might want to do this for a particular reason. In many cases a coloured underground is very helpful, because this way disturbing white spots in your work can be avoided easily.
For the under painting water colours, gouache, acrylic are suitable. I mostly prime my papers with diluted oil colours or use old monotype prints. These sheets have to dry for a couple of weeks until they are ready for use. The drawing on the right was done on a very rough paper primed with acrylic colours

These plein air oil pastel sketches with Caran d'Ache oil pastels were done in a selfmade sketchbook assembled from old monotype prints.

Group of trees with path into the landscape by editionha
Browse Oil Postcards
Plein Air Study with Carand'Ache pastels

The pictures here demonstrate the development of a small plein air oil pastel sketch done in a forest. The support is a piece of paper covered with an old oil painting sketch.

The detail view below might illustrate some of the potential for detailed structures that oil pastels have especially on a structured, rough coloured surface. I picked up a little twig to scratch details of grass and bark into the oil pastel.

All of my drawing lenses:
How to draw a tree
Landscape drawing - Improve your skills
How to draw a pine tree
How to draw decidous trees (mostly apple trees:).)
How to draw coniferous trees (some spruce trees)
Forest diary - a nature sketchbook
How to draw buildings and houses
Drawing the urban landscape
Draw people in a landscape
The self portrait - somewhat of an adventure
Face drawing -how to draw a face
How to draw eyes
Artists sketchbooks - little nothings turn into big somethings
Sketching gear - a guide for beginners
How to draw with a pen
How to draw a straight line

I use Sennelier oil pastels preferably for smaller size works up to A4 or similar format. The look of an oil pastels with sennelier pastels is quite similar to an oil painting, even little impastos can be created.

A postcard with this motif is available in my Zazzle Store

Art print Summer
field flowers

Apple and pear trees
landscape in oilpastels

Art print - At the beach