Hello out there and welcome to Oil Pastel for the Curious Beginner! This course will be a step-by-step, absolute-start-to-absolute-finish journey in creating a realistic oil pastel drawing, using a photo reference of a green and red apple on blue cloth.

In this class, you will learn how to:

Measure and draw a very simple image accurately from a photograph.
Layer oil pastel for color matching and to control color saturation or intensity.
Create realistic textures by using different pressure or direction with oil pastels.
Create both soft and hard edges with oil pastel, and learn how to adjust the amount of blending.
Learn the way light and shadow play on a spherical object and apply that knowledge in order to color this image realistically.

These skills are important if you are looking towards making more complex drawings in oil pastel because they offer you a wide variety of tools that you can carry forward into subject matter that inspires you. Like anything, once you have the skills you need, you can use your creativity and personal choice to create anything you'd like. This class offers a lot of basic skills in a short amount of time and in a very straightforward way. By replicating a very simple, and pretty forgiving subject, and by walking through it step-by-step together, this class will be very accessible, even to a complete beginner.

This class is geared towards beginning artists who have never tried oil pastel or tried it only loosely and want direct guidance on how to achieve a good variety of realistic effects in this beautiful medium. Students do not need any prior experience with oil pastel or any other art medium to take this class. If you have prior experience, however, you may still gain a lot from this class if you are looking for some new techniques. It is not meant for more intermediate or advanced artists.

You will find under "Resources", a downloadable list of materials you will need for this class here, which we will also review in depth in the "Materials" Lecture (Lecture #2). You will also find the photo reference you will need for this course to download and print (preferably on photo paper).

Mary Cahill

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