My Latest Oil Pastels Articles

Welcome to my Oil Pastels blog! In addition to updates on every new product review, techniques article, art lesson and site article I post, I'll be adding blog entries on topics relating to art, creativity, self employment and greasy kidlike fun with Oil Pastels. When you're over 21 it's okay to make a colorful mess any time you want.

Jan 28, 2010, Video

Video art lessons in oil pastels by Robert Sloan, also index to more video tutorials when there's too many for one page.

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Jan 28, 2010, Landscape Video Art Lesson

Six-part video art lesson on underpainting and painting a landscape in watersoluble oil pastels.

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Dec 14, 2009, Back to Updating!

Sorry about the long hiatus. I was pretty busyfor a while, especially in November. I participated in NaNoWriMo for my tenth year running. I beat my best -- instead of writing just one 50,000 word novel or even writing an 80,000 or 90,000 word novel like most years, this year I had five manuscripts over 50,000 words. The fifth one was at 65,000 words by the end of the last day of November.

I finished it off in the first few days of December at a slower, easier pace and have been recuperating from my massive writing marathon. This year was when I pushed myself as hard as the new folks who never have written a novel before and don't know for sure that they can win. Needless to say, there went most of November's spending money. I got three t-shirts, a hoodie and a coffee mug to celebrate along with making a donation to support the site and the Young Writers' Program.

So that of course was why I wasn't writing good oil pastels articles in November at all. I was away in merrie elfland or chasing down magical cats in New Orleans, wrangling vampires in 1860 San Francisco. It was fun.

I did hardly any art though. Now that I've rested up a bit, I've got editing to do. Heh, about a year's worth of editing ahead just from this year's marathon. My 2004 Nanowrimo novel is almost ready to send out and I hope to have that submitted while it's still 2009.

In art-related news, I also recently purchased the last five colors of Colourfix Primer, so I'll be doing an article on using Colourfix primer as an underpainting -- both using black and white together for a sanded-surface Notan to paint on, and using the actual colors in a bold abstract way on watercolor paper in Miss Barbara's landscape. I've been planning that painting for months and hope to create it soon. Will of course be documenting stages and writing it up since that's a major, serious work.

I've also finally replaced my long-lost, much-loved set of Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble wax artist crayons. Technically these aren't oil pastels -- ya coulda fooled me. They handle a lot like the best artist grade oil pastels, have wonderful opacity and are even better than I remembered.

So I can now finally review a product I've loved for more than a decade. They work well with oil pastels and have some very specific uses that make them a necessity for me -- especially since I do love working on black or dark colored supports.

Have a happy Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Ramadan or Solstice, everyone! And watch your inbox for upcoming articles, because I'm finally back from my novelwriting blitz and ready to draw!

Dec 14, 2009, How to Draw Grass in Oil Pastels

How to draw grass in oil pastels, step by step demonstration of short clipped grass texture in sun and shadow.

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Oct 30, 2009, Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks

Product review of Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks, a new watersoluble crayon and type of artist grade watercolor.

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Jul 26, 2009, Drawing Eggs

Drawing eggs can be more difficult than silver or crystal, follow this demonstration to create a still life of several eggs.

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Jul 24, 2009, Notan

Notan is an exciting new concept in preliminary drawing for any serious painter. A Japanese word meaning literally

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Jul 21, 2009, Grass Texture

Grass texture is easy to draw once you know how, yet very tough for beginners till they figure it out. Hint, short vertical strokes work better than long horizontal ones.

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Jul 21, 2009, Tonal Layers

Tonal layers are a useful method of combining colors, filling smooth flat areas of color and preparing for blended transitions. This article shows an important versatile technique for oil pastelists.

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