October 24

A fall scene in oil pastel.  Not that happy with it.  I haven't really developed my skills with oil pastels.  I don't technically have a problem with them, but they are definitely not my favorite.

October 12

 

A honeycrisp apple in oil pastel.  

September 5

This is my first time trying oil pastels on canvas.  I don't particularly like it.  Using oil pastels to fill in all the canvas is not easy and the texture remains.  It also makes blending very difficult.  I'm not sure I'll try again.

August 15

Time to play with oil pastels.  I feel I've done a lot of variations on this scene.  At some point I'll have to go play in the mountains. 

August 7

At a workshop today I got to experiment using oil pastels on different kinds of paper.  The one on the left is using velvet paper.  It was so nice laying down the oil pastels, but the colors were much more difficult to blend.  The other is using a more textured paper.  While the the colors blended easier, the texture made it difficult to lay down a nice solid line.  It was cool to get to experiment with different papers.

August 2

Playing with oil pastels.  Couldn't think of anything to make so I just made weird designs.  I admit it didn't take much to do, but I was really slow on color choices.

July 13

Pear in oil pastel.  The lines aren't as clean as I would've liked, but I'm fairly happy with the blending and shading.

May 28

Playing with oil pastels.  The colors are a bit skewed because I couldn't be bother to get the other light.  Overall, I'm OK with how the flower turned out, the background is another story.  My reference picture had everything green and blurry in the background.  While it makes the flower stand out more, I'm not entirely happy with how the background looks.

April 11

I think this is the best oil pastel I've done yet.  Everything blended really well.  The inspiration came from a photo on the internet.  Tulips are my favorite and since I want so much for the warmer weather to get here it seemed fitting.  I lightly sketched it first and then had to try and erase it even lighter because unless the lines were so light you almost couldn't see them, they still showed through the pastels.

April 8

Time to play with oil pastels again.  It was hard to control the edges of the apple when i was blending.  Something to work on.

February 25

This not pretty.  Nor is it intended to be.  I watched a YouTube tutorial the other day that involved using turpentine to blend oil pastels.  I never would have thought of that.  This is my experimentation with that technique.  There's a big difference in what the effect is depending on how heavy you put on the oil pastel.  Now to find something to draw with oil pastels and try it in context.  I think I need to get more q-tips though.  I used a cotton ball and I can tell I will need more of the control that a smaller applicator would offer.  Also, the smell of turpentine REALLY lingers.

February 21

Got out the oil pastels tonight.  I used a photo for reference.  The background is a little more solidly green than I would have liked.  But overall, I don't think it's too bad.  It was interesting blending the colors in the leaves.  I wish I had had some gray to work with as that was the color of the tree itself, but I had to make do with the browns.  Pretty happy overall.

February 15

I've started collecting photos from the internet for inspiration for pieces.  Thank goodness for Google image search.  I was really skeptical about this one as I was doing it.  I didn't like how the sky was coming together at all.  There's still some aspects I'm not entirely happy with, but once the trees went it I actually kind of liked it.  I need to work with pastels more, I see a lot of potential in the medium.  And hey, all the tree practice finally yielded nice tree silhouettes!

January 21

I didn't have to work today so I treated myself to a long massage with my favorite massage therapist.  The downside is I now feel like a limp noodle and didn't feel much like being creative.  I suppose that's when you have to push through if you really want to make progress on a goal.  This picture is similar to one I did with chalk pastel earlier this month.  I wish I had used lighter colors on the hill in the foreground.  Initially, the grass was looking very muddy.  I ended up using the corner of my fingernail to scratch back out some of the color and restore some depth.  The area around the tree is also muddier than I would've liked.  My fingers where not as precise when blending as I needed them to be.  I like the over shading of the tree, but I need to learn how to integrate branches without them looking like they're just laying on top.

January 17

So super pleased!!!!  This turned out so much better than I thought it would.  The tree still needs work.  But the sunset colors blended pretty much exactly the way I wanted them too.  I'm going to have to watch some more tutorials on trees (there are tons out there).  I somehow thought that bare branches would be easier than a full tree.  I'm not sure about that assumption anymore.  On reflecting a bit, I think part of my issue with the tree is the branches don't taper at the ends.  Something to think about for the future.