A Beginners Guide To Painting With Oil Pastels
We’re passionate about oil pastels! This fantastic medium is as vibrant as it is versatile.
If you’ve never picked up an oil pastel, you could be forgiven for thinking they’re similar to a child’s wax crayon. However, aside from the dazzling spectrum of vivid colours, they’re far from Crayola territory and can be used to create some really spectacular art.
The second module of our 14-week course explores how to draw with oil pastels. Read on, for an under-the-spotlight look at our oil pastel module and how to use them to their full potential…
Are We Drawing or Painting with Oil Pastels?
You might assume that creating art with oil pastels is a form of drawing, rather than painting. However, many established artists refer to it as ‘painting with oil pastels’:
- Oil pastel techniques often mimic aspects of painting
- Oil pastels can be blended and layered to create effects similar to paintings
- The medium is gloriously expressive and brilliantly coloured, which gives a paint-like appearance
Because the oil pastel blurs the lines between the two disciplines, we will use ‘painting’ and ‘drawing’ interchangeably in this article.
The History of Oil Pastels
You might be wondering about the origins of oil pastels. In fact, we have Picasso to thank for oil pastels – or ‘oil sticks’ as they were also called.
While the concept of using oil to bind pigments dates back to ancient times, this primitive early medium was not the same as the modern oil pastel.
In 1948, Pablo Picasso sought a more practical and portable alternative to oil paint. Although oil paints are a preferred medium for fine artists, they take a long time to dry and the chosen support requires special preparation. Picasso sought a convenient and versatile product – as rich and vibrant as oil paint – that could be applied to any surface without preparation.
Picasso’s quest led him to Henri Sennelier, a French manufacturer of high-quality art materials. Rising to Picasso’s challenge, Sennelier developed what we now know as oil pastels.
These innovative oil sticks were soft and waxy – rather than powdery and chalky like regular pastels – and highly pigmented. This allowed for expressive lines and thick, dense strokes.
Picasso was delighted with the result and purchased 40 of each of the 48 colours available. This marked the beginning of a new era in the art world.
Oil pastels can be combined with other media, making them ideal for mixed-media artists. A number of other celebrated artists have used oil pastels, including Henri Goetz, Edgar Degas, Joan Miró and Cy Twombly.
What Are Oil Pastels Made From?
Oil pastels are made from the following elements:
- Pigments
High-quality pigments create the vivid colours that oil pastels are known for. Traditionally, these pigments were derived from natural minerals, plants or animals – such as iron oxide to make ochre or madder root to make alizarin crimson. However, these days, many oil pastels are made from synthetic pigments.
- Wax
Unlike chalk pastels, oil pastels contain a significant amount of wax to give them a smooth and creamy texture. This can include natural waxes like beeswax or carnauba wax, or synthetic waxes, which help the pigments adhere to surfaces.
- Oils
Non-drying oil – typically mineral oil – is used as a binder to hold the pigments and wax together. This allows the pastels to remain workable for longer periods.
- Additives
Certain additives are usually included to enhance the performance of the pastels – for example, improving their blend-ability, durability and texture.
How To Draw with Oil Pastels – Techniques for Beginners
During our oil pastel lessons, we’ll cover a broad range of techniques that will help you explore this exciting medium, including:
- Different ways to hold an oil pastel for different effects
- Making strokes and marks
- Blending techniques
- Layering colours to achieve depth and richness
- Creating different textures such as sgraffito (scratching) and impasto (thick tactile layers)
- Paper and other recommended surfaces for oil pastels, such as canvas, wood, and even metal
- Tools, including blending stumps, cloths, erasers and gloves
- Fixatives
- Warm-up exercises to get comfortable with oil pastels
- Step-by-step project ideas, from landscapes to still life
- Explore different ways of painting with oil pastels
Most of our students are pleasantly surprised and grow to love the medium, once they’ve mastered the basics of how to draw with oil pastels.
Experience Painting with Oil Pastels
Oil pastels have a soft, creamy texture, making them highly blendable and perfect for layering. In addition, they can be used to work in very vibrant colours, reminiscent of oil paints.
The unique texture and chunky format of this medium might appear to be limiting, but it can help us to create very interesting and aesthetically pleasing work. With oil pastels, we are forced away from fine details and so our work is looser, bolder and has a more painterly, expressive quality to it.
In our sessions, we’ll show you tricks and tips to get the best results when painting with oil pastels, such as:
- Sgraffito with oil pastels – thickly layering colours and then scratching away to reveal different colours beneath
- How to use fixatives to preserve your art and avoid unwanted smudging
- Colour mixing and how to blend oil pastels to avoid ‘muddy’ colours
- Working with your mistakes – how to correct mistakes or work them into your art
Oil Pastels For Beginners with Seasons Art Class!
We love painting with oil pastels! With many unique and appealing properties, it’s no surprise that oil pastels are popular. As well as being expressive, being in stick form, they are clean and conveniently portable.
When you join a Seasons Art Class course, oil pastels are just one of the four media you’ll learn about. Our comprehensive 14-week course is designed to build foundational skills that are the gateway to developing more advanced and complex techniques.
You’ll love the journey of expanding your artistic ability with our support and expert tuition. Our tutors demonstrate different oil pastel painting methods through a series of fun exercises before giving you ample time to try them out for yourself. At the end of each oil pastel lesson, you’ll be given a detailed handout to take away, so that you can practice more at home.
Want to learn how to draw with oil pastels (and way more besides!)? Please click and enter your postcode to find your nearest Seasons Art Class – we’ve got branches throughout the UK!