Oil Pastels and Mark Making

1. Introduction to Oil Pastels: Hi, everyone. My name is Patty from PS illustrations. Today, we're gonna start our oil pastel unit. We're gonna begin by doing some basic skill building with our blending as well as our mark making and different oil pastel techniques. And then we're gonna go ahead and apply it to an abstract artwork. I have my example here. Okay? We're gonna work on our blending skills. We're gonna work on our color theory and con compositions overall. So this isn't an introductory unit, really? Just exploring the medium and learning how to work with it. All right, let's go ahead and get started. 2. Basics & Blending: today, we're gonna learn some basic oil pastel techniques blending from a neutral color into your preferred color, your color of choice so that you can get value. Grady INTs as well. A sub different mark making techniques such as a heavy pressure blend, a light pressure blend, stippling, scum, billings, graffito and how to blend with a paper towel. So let's go ahead and get started. The three main colors that you're gonna need for this activity. Initially it is white, gray and black. Okay, so I'm gonna locate them here. There's my black. Here's my gray. I apologize for them being broken. Um, get really into my high pressure blends and they tend to snap. So it's not a bad thing. You can still use the smaller. So in starting this I've got if you don't have, like brand new pastels, they're gonna have some color pigment on it. So you just kind of take a paper towel kind of rub it off. It's important because you don't want to unintentionally mixed colors that you we're not looking to mix, especially if it's a complementary color, because then you're going to get some muddy nastiness. Okay, so my rights Pretty clean, blacks pretty clean Grace Got a little really want it. And my grip. Okay, so in my example, I blended white and purple. I'm gonna kind of mix it up for you guys. Let's go ahead and do a blend too blue. So I do like a mid tone blue. And with this technique, what I really want you guys to do is practice pushing heavier. I want you to hide the paper and using this color, I'm gonna dio a stumbling technique where I do figure it's and circles in a controlled small area Notice I'm not rushing it. And as I move from my right hand side to my left, I'm gonna leave some larger gaps of the paper shine Reason why is when I mixed in my white . It's an area that I'm gonna want more white pigment or more white oil pastel rather to blend in so that we get that really nice, greedy in from light to dark. So this techniques works really well with kind of mid tones and light colors. It's more challenging with the darker colors. Say this dark indigo. But I have over here this one. You mean you could do it, mixing it in with white. But you're gonna have some instances where it's not kind of blend in a clear fashion for when you're going that dark. I would highly recommend going from an actual that dark color to a mid tone. You're going to get a smoother ingredient and your project will look better over all. Okay. So as I move from my right to my left, my stumbling has gotten a little bit larger. Still controlled. I'm not scribbling, Making sure I don't have any harsh edges tonight, Glenn from great toe. So now on this one were directed to do White to our color of choice. So now I'm gonna take my white. I'm just gonna start scum bling as well. So figure eights and circles, It's all right. If you get out of the lines, try not to, but huh Sometimes it just kind of happens while you're stumbling. So notice as I am making my way across using a heavy pressure blend to really mix these colors. Careful. The holder paper. It doesn't for run away. Look at that beautiful blend from light to dark that's starting to come out right but we've got a really beautiful, smooth transition here. But then I get super dark over here. You see where it's got like this clear values step. Don't be afraid to bring back in your original color and stumble right on top. There's nothing wrong with that. It's kind of like a balancing act. You got a kind of blend. It's very Zen. It's good practice, right? Kind of bring it out a little bit more. Moving my hand so that I can check it without my cash shadow from the window. Bringing a white go too far. Beautiful. So I have a smooth transition from light to dark. You're done now. I'm gonna do this from great to a color. So what am I blew that because I've already done that one. Let's go ahead and do instant is pretty red. Okay? The gay. It's got some little Jim blitz on it from being broken without a little paper on it. I'm gonna come in here and with these small little nubs what I really like about them. It's really great when they're wrapped with paper, right? Because they don't get it all over your fingers. But with oil pastels. You're just gonna get dirty, right? So I mean, make sure you roll up your sleeves and with these little loves, You know, a lot of people throw these away, and it's really wasteful because this technique, you can just turn it on its side, right, And you can get the same level of control stumbling. You actually, Philip a larger period. I really like doing this technique with these little nubs for my trees. What? I'm doing landscapes. Um, because you're going to get more control with the nubs, and you can Philip larger areas, depending on a larger tree. Oil egx is I really enjoy oil pastels when I go out into the field and I wanna do a landscape kind of coloring The reason why is although I tend to use water color sometimes it's a nice break because then you don't have to bring water with you, right? Don't look all that stuff around it, just like in a little box. You know, they come into smaller packs, but I'm obsessed with lots of colors, so I splurged a little, but you can do all of thieves with, you know, the basic primary colors. You know you don't have to be super fancy. All right. Okay. Same technique. Blending from dark to light, right. Figure rates and circles putting less pressure and putting more gaps as they move my way to the left. Okay, so on this one, I'm instructed to put it with gray. Okay, so here's one that's full. You can kind of see how the technique is the same, right? So figure AIDS in circles. Just kind of overlapping the side. I want all great. Just being really careful. I feel that bad boy in new paper. Stumbling figure aid circles Really pushing hard. It's starting to blend pretty wine color, right? Fill in the paper. Really mix your colors. I think you're eight circles paper starting to get in the waist peel that packable wanted told Lift my colors blended Weird greats and circles. I always go back a little paper bits sticking through number. No paper. Tell me, get paper is when you are doing a light pressure. You just keep blending. Figure eight circles. This is really like where you practice your techniques soirees with your blending, because even if you're doing like a still life, it's really helps you with your shadows and you're different colors that you're going to be using. Right? So we've got now a pressure blend from Grey to this pretty wanted to cover, so you can always bring it back. Something that I did with the blues. You want more of that red shine through? Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. Okay. Not going to do black to a color. So, looking at my example, did it with the red. Let's pick something different. How about the orange? Okay. Come in here. Sure. Hold down your paper. Figure eggs circles. Turning the past Still a little bit getting towards those corners, but it's more precise. Okay, Figure gates circles actually goes significantly faster to use these little nubs. So I I think the bees needs check it out. Boom. Okay, so this orange is actually more on the lighter side. Uh, so it might be a little funky to blended into the black. We'll go ahead and try it. Why not? Right is where we get tow experiment. Someone coming here? Start with my edge. Now black is gonna be the strongest pigment out of all of the oil pastels that I have found . So a little bit goes a long way, right? So already I'm lightning my pressure blend coming into here trying really hard not to had too much. I'm gonna stop about here now. I brought the gray out much farther, but you'll see when we start to mix the orange on top. How it kind of believes in. You can see the orange kind of picks up the black black. Get in there. It's kind of a funky color. It works, All right. Pick your AIDS and circles. Just kind of bringing in the blood. It's Gumbel ing it around, smashing it around, right? Learning opportunity time. I would not necessarily mix my black with my orange. Getting kind of a weird, muddy color in here. Let me show you something down here. So going from white to a color to black, we're gonna get a smoother transition overall that's gonna blend. You know, these mid tone colors relate colors prettier. Okay, so we can mix it up. So here we've got a green looking at this, you can see how, like a mid tone red, darker red blends better into a black versus the orange. OK, but without using kind of these warm ups or practising skills you don't really know. Actually go out of the field, and then you have to, like, scrape things out. It's not as much fun. Okay, so on this one, we're gonna go from white to color to black. So in this one, I went from a mid tone green. Um, I'm gonna do it. Purple. Okay, So, um, I'm gonna do you this purple, cause it's a little bit darker, and this one has a lighter pigment, and we're not gonna make the same mistake from the previous one. Um, so your colors in the middle, right? So we're just gonna stumble that bad boy, and first, Okay, bringing it out over into my white area, make sure to lighten up your pressure and read it around, okay? And then into your black. You don't have to lighten quite as much because you're powerful. It is a powerful Pasto. It's hard to kind of hold on to the paper. This is just average printer paper. Nothing fancy. I gave you guys the pdf, your little at a loss center here in my projects section here on skill share. You can put that guy out in practice along with me. You can do it after you watch the video. It's up to you. Okay. So I'm gonna bring in my block again over on this side. Don't have to go right to black. You can start with the white. You could start from one under the other, but I kind of like seeing it mixing into the color. Great. Let's check that you don't go very far because you want your pure pigment in the middle. Okay, then I'm gonna blend. See how much prettier that IHS. There we go. So this darker pigment is gonna be blending with are black easier. Been with that light orange? Right? Smooth. That is so beautiful. So smooth, Bill. Okay, here we go. My weight. Super nasty. Anybody cleaning it off with a paper towel? This little nubs getting at the end of his life like I'll use all of it. Excuse me. Got cold. First year of teaching in a public high school. You pretty much sick the whole school year I have come to find. Okay, So go ahead and blend that Brian on. Bring decade number gorgeous. So now we've got a smooth transition from white to light purple Invite a mid tone true purple Wading into this color and into my black Gonna lost some of my black in here, so I'm just gonna kind of bring it out that way We've got a full values ingredient. Sweet, sweet stumbles there. 3. Mark Making: All right, now we're gonna work on our mark making techniques. So for this exercise, I really want you to try and push yourself and use at least three colors in each box. Recent, why is when we moved to are expressive abstract art? You're gonna use at least three colors in each section, so it's kind of like skill building getting you kind of prepped in your mind wrapped around it. Okay, So for my heavy lecture blend, I'm going to start with the light blue and I'm pushing hard free. Hence the heavy pressure. So it's kind of like a fine line between pushing really hard and like hooking your oil hostels. If you push super hard, overly hard, you get carried away snapping like I do. Um, you don't need a whole come you do need apply a good amount of pressure, but, you know, dunk a green raging monster on. Okay, So nominal into kind of a mid blue overlapping scuffling with that sweet, sweet stumble Oh, sweet. The greats and circles pushing really hard Bring back in my blue We always mix right back on top That kind of creates a beautiful oil pastel sand which look at that smooth blend. All right, now. So let's go to a green, Because why not? Okay, pushing hard. Make sure my hands out of the way. Right. Well, it's pretty good. Let me bring my blue book. There we go. Okay. For light pressure blend. I'm gonna use the same colors just so that you can kind of see the difference. Let's go ahead and start with our light blue again. So with the light pressure blend, it's like dainty like a feather. So the only time you really do these light pressure blends is when you're gonna for sure at another color on top of this. Right. And you're gonna want the other color to be more dominant, have more power in the relationship. So just stumbling. Kind of bringing it in figure eights and circles, I think transition to our blue. I mean, paper's gonna peek out. That's all right. It's a light pressure blend. It's OK if the paper peaks. Can't you like a flower? All right. Figure raids in circles, making sure not to have any sharp edges. I don't want any stars. Nice and round. Smooth. Okay. So you can really see the difference between these two. This one's got more paper peeking through. Overall, it's less. It's not less blended per se, but with the paper peeking through, you have more of a texture versus on this one. It's gonna be smoother. You still see the stumbling strikes, but without the paper peeking through, you're not gonna have that kind of grittiness to. All right, So stippling is a technique that you can use of oil pastels as well as brushes. And this technique really just employs, um dots. But, um, a misconception. A common one with my students is what I like to call woodpecker syndrome. It's when you take your brush or pastel and you do this with them Now you're gonna get some dots, right? Obviously, if you can even see that, but you're really not getting like the full potential of your passed out, and it's super annoying and it takes forever. It's not really a time saver. Um, have you pushed on your pastel and he kind of twisted Great. You're going to get larger dots and it fills up a larger area. When I show this to my students and they never believe me, I've actually done races with, um, where they do, like crazy would cook your technique, right? Get all sweaty, flustered. I'm just coming here slow and study. Now, the closer your dots are together, the more of that color is gonna show. Look, it's been, what, 20 seconds? 30 seconds. I'm almost done. You're gonna get bits of your pastels in a popping off. It's OK. It's just gonna make it for a pretty mix later. Don't stress. Right. So there is my one told there. Okay, I'm gonna bring in the bank on this side and then figure out my last color. Convenience it. No, I went on the line. All right, well, we'll up your lines. Take your time. Also with doing it this way, you get more control, because with the woodpecker technique, I don't really going so fast. It's really hard to really focus on, like, a specific area. You get the general like, stepped up top, but you're not gonna get that really attention to detail. Okay, so I'm gonna some red on both sides, because why not? Okay. Pink is, you know, a lighter form of red. I'm just kind of twisting my past clouding my red kind of intermittent tryingto get those areas that I see the paper peeking through the challenge with stippling technique. There's gonna be a lot of paper, and then I'm gonna add the right over here because I can't. That looks pretty blended with purple too. Okay, maybe bringing the purple again just cause I miss it, They want more dominant right here. Great. Bring my pink back because yes, like maybe some pink. I just love color. Okay, call it a day. Sweet right. Kind of an interesting technique. Now we've already done stumbling. I've already explained that. Just give it one more practice going between three colors. Don't use black, white or gray for this one. So I'm gonna dio let's dio e yellow to a orange to the red OK, get in here. I'm gonna start my sweet, sweet scramble, figure eights and circles I'm gonna do a heavy pressure blend on one side And then as I make my way over toward makes another color about lighten the pressure right Make this stumbling a little bit larger. Okay? I'm gonna go to my orange now because it's kind of this is the step between the yellow and the red right, Because naturally, if you mix those guys, you get orange. Well, color theory in here. Okay? And as this mixes in with the yellow over here golden Yeah. So you're gonna get more of the yellow orange, right? That as it comes over here and then you mix it with you read, you're gonna He's like, I want to play rolling in the way. Gonna get more of a red orange. Okay, check that out. It's gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. The dig. It looks good. Get that paper over there. Feel that bad for you. Here we go. Okay. Smooth transition. So this is, like, really what we're gonna be doing on our project. So this is my favorite of all time. I really love doing it with grass is actually with my landscapes. Because if you put like your lighter color underneath and then you scratch of the texture of your grass, it really gets those pop highlights and you're able toe really get that harsh. So I'm going to do a yellow and I'll do a green on top just so you can kind of see what I need. And let's take a dark green. Smash that on top. Cover it all. Then you're gonna take this wooden tool you need is a Popsicle stick. Um, you can use your keys. Doesn't really matter. But you pick. You couldn't come in here. You could scratch out some sweet, sweet textures. You can see how you can get some Cressy planes did more of a pattern over here and then with appear type with a paper towel pressure blend we are going to go from Let's do a purple again. Pretty, uh, mid tone. I'm doing well, why? Okay, you take a patrol. Your bullet Who forward with this end, you can come in here blended, and it kind of smoothed it out. It does pick up some of the oil pastel. So you do have to be careful. 4. Sketch Your Composition: So now we're going to start our abstract RP. So on this one, I did some swirls, kind of blending into other swirls, more of an organic kind of shape. I want to show you another technique that you can kind of do as far as adding more geometric. So if you come in here and let's say we've got a circle in the circle in a circle, I'm just gonna start off that way, right? And then maybe you want to add a square square here on may be a triangle going in this way and one giant square over here. Okay, already, you can see it's got some really interesting eye movement. It's really basic assed faras shapes go. But I'm gonna get some interesting kind of divisions in here for this project. I really want you to focus on getting at least 12 sections of shapes. So that 123456789 10 11 12 And I go way more. But I know for sure I have at least 12. So in each section, I want you to focus on getting ingredient from light to dark. Okay? And I also want you to focus on using at least three colors in each 5. Application To Abstract Artwork: Alright guys. So looking at the project right now, I went ahead and did a little section as an example on how we want to approach our oil pastel drawing. So looking at here, I have broken down the basic shape that we drew in the last section of the circle with the square next to it. Notice that I have tried to keep overall my shading consistent, especially over here. You can see how I've kept my darks on the outside of my circle and then transitioning towards light. Now you don't have to have it go dark all the way around in transition toe light with all of your objects, you can see I went a little bit different here on this section of my square because I wanted there to be high contrast between this edge of the purple with the circle and then this really bright yellow within this square. So overall, you need to have three colors in each segment, right? You need to have a blend Age blending well said upland ation, A gradation of dark toe light. Okay, dark to light. And you want kind of more smooth transition, right? I don't really have any blocky sections. So let's go ahead and break this down in another shape. Let's go ahead and take on Let's do this rectangle here. So looking at my colors that I have here, I've got, like, a really pretty reddish purple kind of color here, like a wine color and that I've got greens So I'm thinking I'm going to do a blue here So I'm gonna pull up three different blues I've got, like, a dark in to go a medium blue And the light blue Okay, now this edge here is dark So right away I know that I'm gonna have my edge over here Be light So I'm just gonna come in here and I'm gonna shade it in based on keeping that high level of contrast with my edges Okay? Just stumbling figure eights and circles as a transition over my stumbling And my pressure is gonna lighten up. My stumbling is gonna get bigger as I transition into this new shape. OK, so now I'm transitioning from my light blue to my mid blue My medium blue right. And I'm just kind of stumbling on here because I'm covering a large area. I'm actually using this site of the past. Oh, you don't have to. You can still use the tip. It all works. It's just a different approach. But I'm still stumbling Figure eights in circles and I'm in a transition to my end ago. Amanda goes just a really dark valued blue crisping up the edge as a translates down here. And then I'm stumbling in figurines and circles. Now, as you bring this value in, I'm overlapping my colors But I'm not gonna bring my dark into Go all the way into my light blue I really want that transition from light to dark And if I did that, I would lose that beautiful gradation So I'm coming back in here. I don't want any paper showing, so I'm just gonna layer this back on top right later. This on there and Booth. Yeah. Okay. So, looking at the circle overall, this is more of my dominant circle on Lee because I have every section within here, more or less following the same shade pattern of going light to the center in transitioning out. So this circle automatically is less dominant because now these sections aren't going to necessarily have the same corresponding formula. They will still have contrast ing edges and follow the same Tark Delight principles. But they won't have the same focal point of going to the middle because they're focused on this circle rather than this circle. So to kind of demonstrate this, let's go ahead and keep going as faras with our rectangle here. So now I'm gonna dio yellow because I've got this really dark blue here and it mixes really well with my green, which is right next to it. I mean, just kind of coming in here and stumbling, and I still need to fit three colors in here, so I'm gonna go, Let's see. I'm going to do kind of like a mid tone yellow. I have a pretty gold. You see that? And then I'm gonna move to more of orange. I have been making what I did here. You could absolute repeat color combinations as long as they're not touching. That's my challenge to you. Try to get really experimental with your color combinations, but you only have so many pastels, so I get it. So notice I'm coming back in with my mid tone color and I'm stumbling right back on top. This is really gonna force the blending throughout. Right? So we have our high contrast here between the dark blue and the yellow and the transitions to more of a mid tone Dark with that orange. It's beautiful. Sorry. I'm gonna bring a purple so something that you can kind of do One here is I can keep this contract going with bringing in a really severely dark purple, right kind of mix it up because this is more of like a mid tone orange. It's darker than the yellow. So it still follows our rule as far as having ingredient, But it will give us some freedom blending out our colors if you know what, I'm sink, okay? And I'm gonna bring in this midtown for Paul. Well, look at that. That's pretty. I love color mixing. It's just really freeing this whole project really is about experimentation. Practicing your blending, really working on getting those values steps, right? You're just really learning the medium. All right. Check that. So it's kind of like a really severe step into that light purple. So I'm just gonna come back in here with my men tune Stumble a little bit in there. What's beautiful? That wounded really nicely. Okay, so I'm gonna come back over here now this one's tricky, Okay? Because we've got a light tone over here and we get a light turn over here so we can actually do to lights and fade to the dark in the middle But it's so small let's see what we can do so don't want to do green I don't want to do a yellow And I don't want a blue We could do another red but that's pretty close So I'm gonna dio I'm gonna do kind of like a pinky purple thing And I'm perplexed Let's do a pink purple And then we'll do kind of like this. Okay, so I'm gonna blend these three. Okay, So in my center got my dark, and then I'm in a transition to my lighter purple. Thanks. So there's gonna be some level of overlap. I'm gonna come in here at my peak. That's pretty like that. But you can see overall like that Purple doesn't really pop, so I can come come back in here with an even darker purple and kind of blood. In the meantime, right. It's always additive. You can always add more cool, right? It's the same concept. We've got a dark here and then we've got that dark orange. So it's got to be light on this side and darker on this side. So let's do Let's do are really pretty read. I enjoyed so much over here. OK, so it's going to just blend out right? Kind of hard to scum ballin that really skinny area. But it's doable. You can do it many overlapping colors, and then on this one, I'm gonna go to more of a pink instead of just trying different combos. Let's see how that works. Actually, never pretty well, I'm pretty pleased with that. Bring the red back in, okay? And we'll just finish out this shape before I release you to finish your own projects. Let's do Mr Green. It's gonna do a bright green over here that really makes the red pop because they're complementary colors stumbles, gonna stumble, figure eights in circles yellow And then I'm gonna go, George, because healthy overlap it back on top. We get that sweet sweet blending that sweet blood I love it bringing in a dark green I'm just going right. I'm just out of a $1,000,000. That's okay. It's just experiment. Greenland, bring that back the orange all the way over there, See? 6. Project Recap: Alright, guys. So now it's time for our project. Recap. The things that we did in this project initially waas our oil pastel techniques. Right? We learned about our color. Blending from lights to darks with all of our neutral colors as well is during a full great didn't we learned about heavy play. Heavy pressure blends, light pressure blends, stippling, stumbling scarf Ito as well as using paper towels to help us fund or your finger. And then we applied these techniques to a finish. Abstract earpiece. So here's the initial example that we had that we came into the class with already. And then here's how mine kind of turned out. I used a lot of the main colors, and then I kept it neutral in the background to kind of push those forward. Just another technique that you guys can try in your own projects. Remember, please post your finished products in your project page, and I can leave you comments and suggestions and answer any of your questions. I can't wait to see your guys. Is artwork in your different adaptations to this project? I hope to see you all soon