My oil pastel work

[Dean_Gretsch]

Great examples of other talent you have. While I am not a Picasso fan, your interpretation is very good and immediately recognizable.

 

[jcdeboever]

Nicely executed. I used to burn through Senneller oil pastels back in the day. I tried a lot of different brands and nothing was even close.

Thank you, JC! I have a set of Senns, but use those for basically a top layer or final swooshes. They're almost 3.50USD a stick now!

What I've come to appreciate is how similar the discovery journey is between photography and painting like this. Like being in the darkroom and working to find your favorite film/developer/paper, so it is with oil pastels. Several brands out there - Senns are the undisputed king, but I'm aware of OP artists who don't particularly like them for those valued qualities of softness and smooth application. A lot depends on the paper, too. My current go-to OP are the Mungyo Gallery Soft Artist line. Mungyo also makes some pretty poor student-grade OP's, though. But the Gallery Soft are great for most papers, and a lot cheaper. I also have several Neopastels, they're almost as soft as Senns, but smaller sticks.

I pretty much stick with Arches Oil Paper and Clairefontaine Pastelmat, though the latter is really expensive and my work doesn't really deserve it.

I recall spending $300 + a month on them

 

[otherprof]

Okay, I'm starting this thread so I don't interfere with @snowbear and his ink work thread, even though he invites me to hijack it periodically.

I started messing around with oil pastels as another medium for hand coloring B&W photographs. I never really warmed up to them for that, though. Unlike actual photo oils, which are made to be transparent enough to allow the photograph to show through, oil pastels are quite opaque - like crayons, which they resemble. When I first had a play, the idea of actually covering the photo and having to do any drawing myself to make sense of the image was terrifying. Drawing is not my forte, and I've had scant training.

A couple of them *kind of* worked, but meh.
Here's one of the first things I tried. I had a photo I took on a very bright day with a Holga - limited camera controls, so it's totally blown out. But the negative did at least show this very cool, ancient electric plant built on Lake Superior:

View attachment 175089

Horrible negative, with nothing good to come from it. I scanned it anyway, and printed it out to try again with the oil pastels, just made it more a nighttime scene:

View attachment 175092

So, not a total loss of the negative, but not very good, either. Since then, I've just tried to get away from using bad photos to paint over, and figuring out how a non-painter/sketcher like me could still have fun with a medium like this.

In my own little art journey, I've been studying some of Picasso's work and doing some reading. I never liked much of his stuff (and I'm still not a huge fan of analytical cubism - the earlier form of this style), but I do like quite a lot of his other work, especially portraits. It seems very liberating to not have to think about being anatomically correct.

With this in mind, I decided to use another one of my photos for a reference - which, btw, is actually a B&W photo that I took of my husband and later hand painted with photo oils. (Why yes, I did have to mention that. The skin tones and hair came out great!)

Here's the photo:
View attachment 175094


And here is the oil pastel painting I made from it, Picasso-style:


View attachment 175095

I wasn't going to try to draw any of that background or do anything, really, too much like the photo. So it was just a lot of fun - and btw, he loves it! So I view this one as a success.

I've scanned or photographed most of my stuff. Oil pastels can be slick and messy, so not much scanning anymore. Most of what I do is from some kind of photo reference, though not all.

More, please!!

 

[terri]

I recall spending $300 + a month on them

That is...a lot.

The Grande sizes are fun, too, but I've only bought white in that size.

 

[terri]

More, please!!

Thank you!

Another thing I have played with is copying the masters. It really forces you to think things through and try to plot out a painting.

It's also quite humbling, when you appreciate how talented these artists are/were.

One of the first ones I tried was Georgia O'Keeffe's Red Poppy:

I used cheap red construction paper for this. I thought that was quite clever at the time, but the OP's didn't blend as well and my outlines, in black wax pencil, got kinda squirrelly. I learned what NOT to do more than what to do with this one.


I used a much better paper, suitable for OP's, for the next one I tried. A Canson art paper called Mi Teintes, with a gray base.

van Gogh's A Starry Night:

Honestly, I don't know what I was smoking to want to tackle this one. I've just always loved it. I think I spent 2 hours alone just playing with the three largest swirls. I crowded out the moon, too. I liked the paper but it's a little lightweight, and I let a lot of the gray peep through rather than try to fill it all perfectly. I'm happy I did it, but it wore me out.


From around the same time period, this one is something that just popped into my head, no reference. I had the idea of a streetlamp, a solo figure and some kind of mystery. And I gave myself an excuse to paint another van Gogh-type tree, and glow-marks around the light. Other than that, I just sketched it out and painted it:

My proportions are strange in the background. Seems obvious now I just didn't know how to finish it. But hey, I had a recognizable human figure, and it was from my own brain, so I was happy with it.

Having little flashes of ideas is great - but executing them in a convincing way is still a challenge for me. Not unlike photography!

 

[jcdeboever]

I recall spending $300 + a month on them

That is...a lot.

The Grande sizes are fun, too, but I've only bought white in that size.

I was melting them in wax.

 

[terri]

I recall spending $300 + a month on them

That is...a lot.

The Grande sizes are fun, too, but I've only bought white in that size.

I was melting them in wax.

Brave man!

 

[snowbear]

I see what you mean about the blending, but I like the poppy. Starry Night is darn good, IMO.

 

[terri]

I see what you mean about the blending, but I like the poppy. Starry Night is darn good, IMO.

Thank you, Charlie.

You know how it is when you look at some of your older photos, and all you can see are your technical (or other) errors? That's what this thread is doing for me. But since I'm able to see them, at least that means I've developed a better feel for this.

Your ink work, watercolors, and now soft pastels...you play with a lot more media than I do.

Have you ever heard of Nupastels? Prismacolor makes them - and I only know Prismacolor for their wax pencils. Another oil pastel artist (whose stuff is amazing!) does all his underpaintings/sketches using Nupastels. They are a *hard* version of soft pastels, i.e., chalk. This artist gave me some step by step instructions, and they really do make a nice base coat. You have to coat them with a workable fixative spray to seal it before reaching for the oil pastels.

Given your mention of soft pastels, I'm curious if you've ever used them.

 

[waday]

That portrait is awesome!

 

[SquarePeg]

These are all great Terri! Princess uses the oil pastel "crayons" for her artwork. She had a few items from art class this year in the annual student showing. It looks like fun. I'm still looking to take a painting class if I ever find the time and place.

 

[snowbear]

I see what you mean about the blending, but I like the poppy. Starry Night is darn good, IMO.

Thank you, Charlie.

You know how it is when you look at some of your older photos, and all you can see are your technical (or other) errors? That's what this thread is doing for me. But since I'm able to see them, at least that means I've developed a better feel for this.

Your ink work, watercolors, and now soft pastels...you play with a lot more media than I do.

Have you ever heard of Nupastels? Prismacolor makes them - and I only know Prismacolor for their wax pencils. Another oil pastel artist (whose stuff is amazing!) does all his underpaintings/sketches using Nupastels. They are a *hard* version of soft pastels, i.e., chalk. This artist gave me some step by step instructions, and they really do make a nice base coat. You have to coat them with a workable fixative spray to seal it before reaching for the oil pastels.

Given your mention of soft pastels, I'm curious if you've ever used them.

I haven't heard of them, but I'll look at them. I have some of the Prismacolor standard colored pencils and a set of the watercolor pencils that i haven't opened, yet - I'm waiting to finish off the Derwents I have.

I started with oils, as a kid, though remember having some pastels at one point, and I've have done some work with Conte; a lot of charcoal in the art classes. When I decided to take it up again after a number of years, I decided against oil and gravitated towards acrylic and watercolor. The pen and ink is really just an extension of the interest in fountain pens. At Maryland I took a traditional Chinese calligraphy course for my cultural diversity requirement.

I have craft-store branded hard pastels - chalk-like square sticks. I'll probably get some oil/soft pastels later.

 

[snowbear]

These are all great Terri! Princess uses the oil pastel "crayons" for her artwork. She had a few items from art class this year in the annual student showing. It looks like fun. I'm still looking to take a painting class if I ever find the time and place.

I'd like to see some of her work.

 

[stapo49]

Your "starry night" and "street corner" are fantastic. I love Van Gogh and the impressionists.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

[terri]

These are all great Terri! Princess uses the oil pastel "crayons" for her artwork. She had a few items from art class this year in the annual student showing. It looks like fun. I'm still looking to take a painting class if I ever find the time and place.

That's so cool to hear! I like them because you can simply pick one up and get going.

I bet you'd really enjoy a painting class. It's a time commitment, that's for sure.