Oil Pastel Techniques

Painting makes for one of the most creative processes around. It may surprise you that painting along with music to this very day continues to pose myriad creative challenges to the people who are addicted to the same. Out of all the ways of painting that have been doing the rounds from time immemorial, oil pastels are the most popular. Why are oil pastels so popular? Simple really, they are sufficiently easy to create and a lot less messy than their counterparts. Oil pastels also enjoy a great deal of patronage amongst those individuals who have just begun dabbling in the world of paintings, and it is these individuals who need to familiarize themselves with oil pastel techniques the most. Take the time and read on to know how to best use the most common oil pastel techniques to your advantage. It may surprise you what wonderful effects these techniques can have on your oil pastels. Just make it a point to follow them all to a T and you are good to go!

• One of the first things to remember when working with oil pastels is to use the sides of your oil pastel sticks. This will help cover larger areas with economized strokes. Most people tend to use the front portion of the brush. This, however, is a bad move and will not always throw up the best of results.
• To achieve the best stroke pressure, don’t be afraid to experiment. It’s only experimenting that will help you zero in on the right amount of pressure to exert when your painting with your oil pastel sticks. Experimenting with pressure will also help you vary the color density that in turn will give your oil pastels their own unique feel.
• If an oil pastel stick breaks away, don’t just throw it away. When you get a lot more familiar with oil pastel techniques, you will realize that you can use those broken sticks to your advantage.
• When you are looking at hatching, cross hatching, adding details or making outlines to your oil pastels, it is best to use linear strokes. Here again, pressure is the key. Your ability to control the amount of pressure you exert will be directly proportionate to the success of your pastels. It may also be interesting to know that linear strokes work exceptionally well when painting with dry and soft pastels.
• If there is a particular area on your pastel that you are looking to keep dark or clean, it is essential to use colors that have similar tones in that particular area. Don’t ever make the mistake of tinting darker colors with lighter ones. This is because when you tint dark colors with light ones, the dark colors can easily become lighter than you want, and making them darker again would be such an ordeal.
• For that much sought after ‘sgraffito effect’, you can use a palette knife or a razor blade. This will help result in a fur like texture on your paintings and comes well in use when you are looking to paint fur on animals. Alternately, for this effect, you can also use soft lead pencils or colored pencils.
• As and when you add oil pastels on top of each other, the painting will get heavier. You cannot do anything to prevent the painting from getting heavier, but you sure can do something to get rid of the heaviness. To achieve this objective you can scrape off heavy areas with a razor. This will also help give the painting a unique ghostly or fuzzy look. It will make sense to mention here that just like a painting knife is essential for a oil painter, so is a razor for an artist who dabs in oil pastels.