Even though this is my first oil pastel project (at least as an adult--don't even remember if I used them as a kid), oil pastels have officially joined my rotation of art mediums. I was in the mood for loose and free, and that's exactly what I got with Francoise's class and this project. I got a bit sidetracked after the warmup exercise, but it was worth experimenting with various oil pastels on different papers and with all sorts of blending techniques I've discovered. I now know that there's a wide range of characteristics for oil pastels--firm and sticky to buttery soft and creamy. It's all about leaning into the characteristics of a specific oil pastel to achieve the effects that you want (just like with any other medium). The Penel Arts fit the bill this time with their stickiness and ease of creating textures. Although I did do some initial blending with paper towels in the sky, I ended up using other tools like silicone finger protectors, silicone-covered stirring rods, and cotton swabs (of the densely packed cotton variety).

This was the warmup, where I tested out Canson XL Mixed Media paper on the left and some smooth cardstock (Accent Opaque smooth) on the right. On each paper, I used Pentel Arts on the left side and Mungyo Gallery softs on the right side and tried blending with paper towels, blending stumps, and cotton swabs. The paper towel removed a lot more pigment from the page for the Pentel Arts than I wanted, so I decided that I could use that for earlier/lighter layers, but not for subsequent blending of layers. The paper stumps drove me crazy because of the cleanup, so I was determined to find tools that absorbed less of the oil pastels. I found silicone tools or blending brushes made of dense foam that I'll be trying out when they arrive (although I found some silicone-covered stirring rods that could blend to a certain extent, but in small areas).