Finally, there is a great book available for oil pastel beginners, that is the book Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner: Basic Lessons in Becoming a Good Painter. John Elliot has written a really excellent beginners book for oil pastels, and I will eventually give a full review in a future article here.
Oil Pastels Beginners Guide
In this Guide for Oil Pastels Beginners, I explain how to use oil pastels. I’ve written this guide primarily for complete beginners new to the medium, however hopefully there may be some useful information for more experienced oil pastel artists.
Let’s start with the basics!
What You Need To Know About Oil Pastels
My first piece of advice to artists new to oil pastels is to strongly consider beginning with the best quality oil pastels you can afford.
The quality of your oil pastels is important, especially for beginners. The main issue I find beginners run into is that often the oil pastels seem like kids crayons. The reason they feel like kids crayons is because a low quality oil pastel brand was used.
“Student quality” vs “Artist quality”
Student quality oil pastels can be a problem because these cheaper oil pastels don’t blend as well together, and they have a look and feel of something like crayons for kids. This discourages artists new to oil pastels and they often move on to something else, without ever really discovering how great the medium is.
So I really think that beginners need to be aware of the difference in what is called “student quality” vs the “artist quality” oil pastels, because that difference alone could be a deciding factor in whether or not to continue using oil pastels or not.
My personal recommendation is Sennelier oil pastels (which I review here). Sennelier are softer, richer and more vibrant in color, and they more easily blend together.
Check out my oil pastels brand comparison for other options available.
The oil pastels painting below was done in all Sennelier oil pastels.
I’m not saying it is a must to get the most expensive, highest quality set of oil pastels, or that it’s the only important thing. But artist-quality mediums should always be strongly considered.
I have heard from many artists who were turned off at first from oil pastels because they were using a cheaper brand. But then they later discovered they actually loved oil pastels when using a better quality.
If an entire set of high-quality oil pastels isn’t possible, the next best thing is to purchase some individual sticks of oil pastels from an artist-quality brand. You can mix different brands together as you work, and it also helps to make comparisons between artist-quality and student-quality.
What Makes Oil Pastels Great for Beginners
Moving on — what makes oil pastels great for beginners (as well as experienced oil pastelists), is how quick and easy it is to get started creating artwork.
There is no need for setting up various mediums and solutions, or brushes or much of anything else. All you need is a sheet of paper and you are ready to get started. Yes, you can use solutions, brushes and other artists tools for working with oil pastels. But it isn’t required.
As far as paper or surfaces, oil pastels work on a variety of papers.
If you are interested in what type of paper is best for oil pastels check out my article Best Paper for Oil Pastels.
Light Source and Direction
Nature’s Bounty
Small Changes that Matter: The Power of Color
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Hi, I tried this exercise today. It was such an eye opener to visualize values and shapes especially near to sun (light). Thank you so much for this helpful demo. Megha
