The Joys Of Oil Pastels, why (and how) you should use 'em

I have been experimenting with the colorful goodness of oil pastels. I borrowed a great book from my local public library on how to use them and what can be done with a good, wide variety of colors.

Personally, I use the soft oil pastels but there are many other types including a colored-pencil-ish type (which I'm dying to try!) and a chalky variety not unlike conte crayons. On paper, I've found that the soft oil pastels come out very vibrant. Recently, I've discovered that one can apply the oil pastels to everything from textured wood to canvas and even small-grit sandpaper (which will eat your pastels alive, btw).

If anyone else has tried this wonderful, liberating alternative to oil painting, lemme know. Hopefully I might get some of my work up here on CR.net!

Looking forward to seeing some of your work when it's ready. I haven't done any work in oil pastels since grade 8 but I do remember that blending is very easy so you can easily get a lot of depth. So many mediums, so little time.

And that's the greatest part of pastels! I love the fact that I can take my thumb and wipe around the colors, blending them and making it all Van Gogh-ish. It's quite alarming...love it, love it, love it!

Hoping to eventually get some sort of scanner or something (wink, wink Aaediwen) so I can put some of my stuff on here.

I swear the last time I tried oil pastels, the "art" looked like a crayon drawing!!
I simply could not get a feel for the things. Now dusty old soft pastels, that's my medium... yeah the dust is a b**ch, yeah its hard to frame them and not have half the drawing shake off, yeah the fixitive makes them darker... but I can't help myself, its true love.