Drawing with Oil Pastels

Drawing with Oil Pastels:

Why always draw on a white board?

I know.... if you are like me, you get into a mind-set of how most art work is done on a white crisp clean background.

And also how the surface should also be smooth.

When drawing  with oil pastels, we need to think of different ways that we can utilize our mediums.

And most of the time these two categories always seem to be thought of first.

Hands up all who also think of the smooth crisp white paper?

Could you see my hand slowly going up..... well it did.

So let's break the mould shall we...

Oil pastels are wonderful when you want to bring out that texture of say... the different grade roughness of art boards that you can buy these days.

Whether you sharpen your pastes to make a thin line, or lay them on the side and drag them across your paper drawing with oil pastels.

They will slide over the surface, taking in all it's different qualities.

So where does color come in? do you want to do all the work by putting in the color and atmosphere yourself? You don't have to.

"Colour is fun, colour is just plain gorgeous, a gourmet meal for the eye, the window of the soul." - Rachel Wolf.

I have a couple of examples here for you to have a look at. If you look closely, you will find that you can see the grain coming through  the oil pastel colures.

And what are you seeing coming through the lighter colures..... like the white?  You see the color below it, and it's not white!

Photo Courtesy: erinkejo

Firstly with this dog pastel, you can see that the artist has chosen a lovely mellow brown color.

 It's warmth radiates outwardly to us and the use of colures are limited.

Thus, in fact..... giving us a whole new set of rules to follow when creating this different effect.

The board, or cardboard papers color is used to emit the overall color of the dog.

Almost in a negative sort of way when drawing with oil pastels .

Why? Because your not drawing in the brown color yourself, your using your colures to bring out the highlights of the dogs features, letting the background color of the paper do the rest.

And of course when drawing with oil pastels.... your also bringing in the shadows with a black, and most probably dark brown oil pastels. So your working with probably about three or four different colures. And look at the finished result.

It's so natural, and the whimsical way that the oil pastels have been used. makes you feel that the drawing has no intensity about it, it's whimsical, and has an effect that the artist is using a great freedom with their oil colures.

Photo Courtesy: corvidae
Let's have a look at another example of this lovely Puma.

Again! another use of board color chosen for this theme, and how well does it fit together.....

More detail is used here, you can see the play of fine drawing with oil pastels, the thin lines that make up the fur, still letting the base color of the board do most of the work.

You need to get your mind set around using the board color as your greatest asset. And whatever you do you need to think of how your drawing is going to work with your background color.

With every line you make of the pumas fur, to the choice of different oil pastel colures you are going to use.

And what's nice is, that there isn't a whole lot of different colures used. And why? I don't need to spell it out for you do I. The use of the one color of the background board is working overtime for you isn't it.

Now, there are a whole range of different art papers out there for you to choose and you can get them from many different shops, though you will get a wider variety from an art store, stationary stores will have great colures.

If you are going to look at different grades and grains.... you need to be shopping at your art store, or online of course. Let's not forget "The Information Highway". Or should we also call it "The Shopping Highway as well these days".

I find this sort of drawing a whole lot of fun myself. And you should have a go. Try different grains, and colures, who knows what you will stumble upon out there, there are so many different sorts of art materials appearing on the shop shelves these days.

Don't be afraid to try something a little different when drawing with oil pastels, as this style of drawing will knock your socks off.

And one hint. Do have another piece of paper next to you to try out what you intend to do firstly, just in case it does not look as you want it on your main drawing 

After all... you don't want to apply it to your drawing and find that you did a big boo boo, and cant rub it out.

And remember, don't go and use a whole lot of colures, sometimes simplicity can be the best, and in this case I agree.

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