Oil Pastel Color & Handling Studies

I am out of practice in both drawing and painting, and I've only used oil pastels a few times previously, but realize trying to learn how to use these is lots of fun!

Frustrating, but also fun.  (Thank goodness my first dusk attempt (a week ago) worked out well: it gave me the encouragement I needed to try again.)

The gray paper, the way the pastels blend, the way I touched my forehead and then was alarmed at the large purple (oil pastel) mark in the mirror - it's all an adventure.

Abstracts are the most fun, because I KNOW those are just play (serious play, but still).  So perhaps jumping straight into sunsets and trying to figure out how to use shades of orange (a color I haven't used much in any medium) was ambitious...  But I'm learning things, trying these first skies.  (I rarely even painted skies in watercolor!)

I'm happy that I am taking (making) time to TRY.

Color Studies with oil pastels, continued

I think that the kind of sunsets I want to draw aren't as blue as I think they are, and I need to come at them with very different colors (more beiges than blues)...  but I made one with exagerrated blues, and it was educational.  It's hard to get orange reflections to sit on top of the blues - they blend into other colors.

Also shown here: the set as I use them; studies in artificial cereal colors, blues, and greens. 

I think I need a lot more days off to get the hang of these...  But it is delightful to LEARN by trying.

Color studies with oil pastels from Japan

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new oil pastels!

I previously posted that one of my October 2024 adventures in Tokyo was going to the home studio and shop Kawachi Art Supplies, trying the handmade oil pastels they are known for on kraft paper on the patio to confirm they truly are as buttery and lipstick-soft as I'd read (they are!), and then buying a gorgeous, balanced set of ONE HUNDRED of them, because the colors are so amazingly lovely.

Back in November, I finally started to put them onto paper, and decide how I would draw/paint with them.  They are so much softer and blend so much more easily than other oil pastels I've tried, that it really did require some play-testing to choose how to use them.  I'm trying to take up 'softer' ways of painting, unlike the precision of my architectural drafting back in the day, or even some of my watercolors with extensive under-drawings.  And these seem ideal for this softer approach.

So, here's my first representational (non-abstract) color study, using an evening dusk phone photo I took back on Election Day 2024 as the color source.  I zoomed in and made some compositional changes for the study.  All of the colors I used are over on the right.  I made the bay a little darker than it really was, as I work on how to manage reflected light on such a dark base.

One: OH MY GOSH, these are a delight to draw with.  I use my fingers to blend the colors.  I'm learning about how they do or don't blend, and how to layer them.

Two: I am very much out of practice for painting, so I am relieved this turned out well, and that I learned from it.  I'm eager to draw/paint more!

Three: I got to the colors I want from blending, but also want to return to the shop to buy more shades of purple: I have many sunsets I want to paint, some with nearly neon violets within them, and those will be brighter and cleaner if I don't over-blend them.  So yes, I'm making up excuses to buy even more colors.  Yes, I know the owner makes some rather fluorescent violets, and I hadn't thought I'd use those, but I'm inventing new use cases!

I hope this is something that I can do more often - that I will make time for - among my other pleasant creative habits.

 

New Oil Pastels (24 Nov 2024)

I finally opened up the box of Kawachi Oil Pastels from Tokyo, and they are even creamier and dreamier than they look.  I haven't used oil pastels in years, but finally came to acccept that chalk ("soft") pastels are too dusty for me, and that oil is a better solution.  And these... they are SO GORGEOUS!

I need to get to know them, so I'm trying laying them on thick (left), laying them on thin in linear ways (bottom), and blending with my finger (top right).  Oooooooh, blending is so nice...  I'm afraid I'm going to have to take on several subjects (including recent, improbably colored sunsets!) once I have a feel for how to control these.  

1990s hard pastel study (eggs)

My painting archive is more fun than I recall!  I remember making this, back when I was testing gum arabic as a replacement for toxic spray fixative.

I remember drawing it, but I remember it as being smaller, and perhaps having fewer eggs.

It's a shame chalk pastel dust irritates me so badly!

#pastel