Different Way of Using Oil Pastel

So, when getting a fundamental art education, they always say, "don't break the rules." I think it's very important to know the rules, for sure, because without them artistic techniques and proper use of media wouldn't exist. Nevertheless, great art wouldn't exist without breaking some of the rules---impressionism, modern art, abstract art, and other styles would never have come into being without some rule-breaking.

Now, I don't consider myself a "great" artist---I haven't lived long enough---but I have experimented with a little bit of tradition-breaking in certain media. Today I'll be talking about techniques I tried out with oil pastel, since it can be a frustrating medium to use at times.

The problem I encountered with oil pastel was the simple nature of it. It's sticky. It doesn't blend well. It doesn't build opaque layers on itself easily, and if you try to blend colors, you end up rubbing the oil pastel stick hopelessly on the other color, without any of it getting on the paper. Consequently, a lot of oil pastel pieces look streaky or patchy like this:

(I do not own this piece or the rights to it.)

There's nothing wrong with this patchy style, and I like this flower-piece, but I wanted my work to have a smoother feel to it. My oil pastel, called "Out of the Darkness," I completed using my fingers as the principle tool of pastel-application. Since your fingers have natural oils in them, they actually work really well for blending and smearing, where the sticks themselves can fall short.

Out of the Darkness

Where you see the sky turning black, I got that sense of translucency by rubbing the oil pastel across with my index finger. On the grass, I applied several parallel curved lines about the same shape as the hills, and vertically dragged my finger down the lines from one end to the other, causing that rippling, billowing effect. Later I came in with straight white lines to give the scene a glowing appearance.

Where I didn't break the rules was in the water; it appears to have purple reflections, but that was actually pink pastel I was applying on top of the blue. As you can see, it didn't come off very well. The only reason I didn't try to make it more pink was that I felt the cool purple would better fit the color scheme.

Hope my "discoveries" benefit all you artists out there! If anyone would like to purchase this piece, they can contact me via my profile.