Tips and Tools For Working With Oil Pastels

My name is Mona Majorowicz. I am a professional artist who has been making my living selling my work for some time now. I have been in the art and framing industry for over 20 years. I am an animal artist, (meaning I paint critters) who works primarily in Oil Pastel or Water Soluble Pencil.

Currently, I own and operate Wild Faces Gallery with my husband Mike in a small rural town in Iowa. There we sell my original artwork and prints as well as do quality custom framing and offer Giclee printing for other artists.

I maintain a blog about art and the creative experience called Fur In The Paint, as well as write a regular column for Apples 'N Oats (an equestrian magazine) about painting horses.

Animals are my passion and art is how I choose to express it.

Have a plan. As I have mentioned before, I draw everything out in advance. The pastels stain my substrate and so it is problematic to scrape off a color that is wrong and replace it with another color of similar values or lighter. Another way to deal with this is to use lighter colors first. When you apply darker colors over light, you can scrape away all of the pastel and have minimal staining.

For smoother blending, it is best to work consistently. If you leave the painting alone for as little as 15 minutes the pastel "sets up" and makes a rough edge. rubbing your finger lightly over the painting or warming the pastel a bit in your hand will help when going back in to work an older area.

Letting the pastel "set up" can be an advantage when you want to put a strong color or highlight over the already existing painting. Often I will let a painting set over night before I put my whitest whites in, over the top of another color.

Be aware of your lighting situation. Oil pastels will glow under the desk lamps. I think this is because the underlying board is reflecting light through the pastels. However when you put the painting under normal room lighting it may well look dark. I have had this happen several times. Under the table lights it is luminous (insert angelic chorus here.) Then when I hang it on the wall, it is flat and lifeless. So disappointing. How I handle this is by working with my table lamps off. I try to work under the normal lighting conditions that it will be viewed in. This also means I don't paint much at night anymore either.

Clean up. As mentioned before, oil pastels are messy. They develop little booger like tags which roll all over and smear. The floor under my drafting table is all speckled and nasty. About every 2 months (it really should be done much more often) I take some dish soap and scrub like the dickens. Goo Gone also works quite well. Or, if I were a wiser person I would lay down some paper which could be picked up and tossed.

Gloves. Disposable gloves are a blessing. Oil pastels are quite messy and greasy. If you don't want to be constantly washing your hands, I highly recommend getting gloves. I change my gloves regularly as well to avoid tracking on my painting. I go through 10-20 in an afternoon.

Turpenoids. I personally don't use them other than for cleaning up. However they are great if you want to use a paint brush with your pastels. Also you can smudge and soften using a rag and a little turpenoid.

Paper Towels. I use paper towels to wipe the tips of my pastels clean while working. This helps to prevent cross contamination of colors.

Ceramic Tools. These are great for scraping out a large area or removing just tiny little bits. They have a pointed blade on one side and a curved almost spoon like hook on the other.

Color Shapers. I have color shapers that come in various sizes, shapes, points and firmness'. You an get them at most of the same places as oil pastels. They are good for smoothing rough edges, minor blending and cleaning up the little tags of oil pastel that are on the surface of the painting.

These of course aren't all of the possible tools you could use. These are just the one I use regularly and consistently. Go experiment and have fun.