ARE OIL PASTELS FOR YOU?

For a long time I have wanted to start working in oils but my studio is inside our house and the thought of the mess, difficult-to-clean brushes and smell—apart from oil paint spattering on carpet, curtains and walls—made it seem totally impractical.

So when I heard about oil pastels I was really excited. Could I have found the “perfect alternative” to oil paints? The chance to start working in oils, in a cleaner, simpler way?

Oil pastels were developed by Sennelier in 1949 for Pablo Picasso, who was looking for something that had intense, vibrant colour and could be applied to a wide variety of surfaces. The resulting pastel was 100% lightfast and could be used on almost any surface without cracking or effecting the substrate, including colored paper, cardboard, canvas, wood, glass, leather, polystyrene and even plastic.

They are produced by combining pigment, oil and a wax binder, have a slightly creamy/waxy consistency and feel greasy in the hand. They will not crumble like soft pastels.

So far, so good.

Excited about the possibilities of oil pastels, I rushed out and bought about 20 Caran d’Ache Neopastels - and one big Sennelier block pastel.

But for me, things went downhill from there for the following reasons:

I immediately noticed that oil pastels resist blending—or at least make it very difficult. “Clumpy” and heavy, it’s challenging to achieve delicate blends, and certainly not the wonderful blends that soft pastels produce so easily.

Colours can indeed be worked together with those placed next to them to produce “gradients”, but again, in a quite limited way. Blending is possible, but it will take persistence on your part to make it happen or look the way you want it. You will need to experiment to find which way works best for you; a finger, a foam blender, a blending stump or a colourless blender designed for the job.

Because of their oily texture, once oil pastels are laid down, they are not easy to remove (or “lift out”) from the surface of the paper. Once down, they tend to stay down and are not easily manipulated.

I find it hard to create detail with oil pastels, which severely limits its usefulness for me. Working alla prima (Italian for “at first attempt”),seems to the most effective way of working with oil pastels…working quickly, with broad expressive dashes of colour laid next to each other, served me best. I have up trying to achieve details!

Colours already on the surface tend to influence (mix with) the next colours applied on top. A third layer may well produce “mud” (a dirty mix of colours, veering towards brown).

It’s important not to “kill the surface”, that is, lay down the oil pigment so thickly that it fills up all the holes and cervices and becomes too slick to work on anymore. (With soft pastels, it’s possible to layer many more layers, one on top of the next).

Because they are oil-based, they can be manipulated with the solvents found in oil painting studios –turpentine and odourless mineral spirits. This makes them fairly easy to thin out and even create washes. This, for me, seems to open the door to the most creative possibilities and most exciting effects available to oil pastels.

Soft pastels require a toothy surface which can grab the pigment particles holding them in place, but I find that oil pastels seem to work best on smooth glossy surfaces like Bristol paper, with a hard, smooth surface which allows colours to be moved around and blended to the maximum.

Working on a textured surface like cold-pressed paper, leads to “clotting” of the pigment in certain areas, while “skipping” the holes and pits in other areas, leaving them untouched.

One good option is to employ a technique called sgraffito (Italian for “scratched”) which consists of putting down a preliminary layer, covering it with another (or more than one), and then scratching the top layer/s to reveal underlying layers. To work well, a smooth surface is required. Sgraffito does not work on a textured surface because the pastel “digs in” and fills the holes and crevices, making it impossible to remove! 

Overall, I found that one of the best ways to use oil pastels is either to work over an existing acrylic painting or by first laying down a coloured “ground” (using either acrylic or watercolour) to provide an underlying, unifying effect for the subsequent work to take place.

Since they are so “sticky”, they tend to contaminate other oil pastels next to them. You may have to clean the oil pastels before using by wiping off colours transferred from other sticks. Again, not great for travelling or working outdoors. (Soft pastel don’t contaminate each other in this way).

Finally, I was disappointed to discover that, because oil pastels are made with non-drying oils and wax, they never completely dry or “cure”. In effect, they remain workable and slightly tacky and it is recommended to either frame them behind glass or spray fix them with any clear fixative when your work is finished. Your finished work will certainly need to be keep completed paintings separate from others or colours will transfer from one to the other and they may tend to stick to each other. For me, this would discount them as a medium for traveling which is always one of my concerns.