My Latest Oil Pastels Articles

Jan 28, Video

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:18:12 GMT

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

Jan 28, Landscape Video Art Lesson

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:00:18 GMT

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

Dec 14, Back to Updating!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:43:29 GMT

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, How to Draw Grass in Oil Pastels

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:18:18 GMT

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

Oct 30, Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:17:41 GMT

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

Jul 26, Drawing Eggs

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:56:58 GMT

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

Jul 24, Notan

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:13:09 GMT

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

Jul 21, Grass Texture

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:37:35 GMT

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.

Jul 21, Tonal Layers

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:31:33 GMT

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.

Jul 11, Perspective

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:02:55 GMT

Learn how to use Linear Perspective to give your drawings depth, whether they're landscapes or just cups and plates on a table.

Jul 5, Details

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:48:08 GMT

Details in oil pastels painting and drawing can be difficult, but less is more -- sometimes you only need a few!

Jul 4, Animal Drawing by Charles R. Knight review

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:09:47 GMT

Animal Drawing, Anatomy and Action for Artists by Charles R. Knight reviewed -- I've worn out three copies of this must-have classic for animal rendering.

Jul 3, Birds

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:37:49 GMT

Birds are a specialty in themselves for any oil pastelist. Try working from a good photo reference or do many preliminary sketches first.

Jul 3, Articles In Progress

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:24:19 GMT

You might get notified of an update before an article is completely finished. This is merely a function of the software I'm using to write the articles. I can't save unpublished, so if I need to add another drawing or something to continue the art lesson, I'll save it by building the page. My writing process alternates between drawing, writing, scanning, then painting. I know I should write these things offline, but it inspires me to work within the text boxes of my software. That also helps keep me from exploding into ten thousand word articles without any breaks, since I'm used to writing novels offline. So please accept my apologies for occasionally seeing an unfinished article. If you check back a little later or watch for a new update, you'll see it finished and get a chance to capture my process in progress, which might be fun. Right now I'm still working on "Birds" today, it will be finished as soon as the demo painting is done in its stages. It's much easier for me to write out what I did right after I did it than to take multiple progress scans and try to remember exactly what I did at each stage. So please, bear with the inconvenience and enjoy the results. I'm doing a 21 day challenge of an article a day, so you'll have plenty of good new reading and demos if you RSS my feed! Enjoy! Edit: "Birds" is complete now, enjoy my finished Barn Swallow painting and three-stage demonstration. I'll keep on with my 21-day challenge and add more every day for a while!

Jul 3, Watch for New Articles!

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:33:04 GMT

Tonight I decided to take on another of my infamous writing challenges. This time it's adding a new article to this site daily for some days! So you'll be seeing lots of new articles. Many will be on specific painting subjects. Today's new article is an index page on "What to Paint?" This will list articles on how to paint landscapes, seascapes, a self portrait article, animals and birds... lots of cool new pages. Lots of cool new art too since I'll be combining this challenge with my daily art habit. Of course there's nothing in the challenge to keep me from getting inspired and doing more than one article in a day. It helps to get ahead on these things! So break out your oil pastels and prepare for some new challenging demos. And have a great Fourth of July weekend, it's not even a school night or work night this year. Enjoy!

Jul 3, What to Paint?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:22:34 GMT

What to paint? This is an index of articles on painting specific subjects in oil pastels -- landscapes, people, animals, florals, abstracts, dragons and more!

Jun 30, Reflections and Shadows

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:11:55 GMT

Painting reflections and shadows gets richer the closer you observe real ones. Try painting from life in oil pastels, it won't take long!

Jun 29, Composition

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:54:04 GMT

Improve the composition of your drawings with the Rule of Three and other tips.

Jun 4, Online in Arkansas!

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:00:43 GMT

Back online after some trials and tribulations in our family's move from Kansas to Arkansas. I've been offline since about May 24th with very brief periods online, due to the move and then the architecture of the house. Our old router just was not strong enough to carry the signal from the far end where my daughter and son in law set up their computing area in the dining room, to my back bedroom, with my bathroom in between. Plumbing seems to wreak havoc with wireless access anyway. I've got my bathroom, the house bathroom and laundry room on this level and then the kitchen between me and the router. So tonight, my daughter Kitten solved the problem. She went to Wal-Mart and picked up a new, stronger router. "Our old one was hobbling along on a walker. It's really aged." So now that I'm back online and not rushing to get everything I own packed, look forward to some new pages on various topics. I'm itching to create a few new step by step demonstrations. Technical Difficulties Are Over... though the whole process of unpacking and furniture assembly is something else again. I'll try to post weekly even during the unpacking and building, then get back to a faster rhythm. Onward into Oil Pastels! Ari sheds Cat Hairs of Inspiration on you, and Gemini purrs her loudest at your latest efforts!

May 6, Big Personal News

Wed, 06 May 2009 02:32:10 GMT

My family is moving to Yell County, Arkansas. We live in Kansas now. Arid, seasonal, volatile Kansas where the weather tends to wipe me out fast because with two sources of chronic fatigue, when I have to adapt to different pressures and temperatures even indoors, wham. I wind up sleeping 18 hours a day like my cat and exhausted the rest of the time. I've kept up daily art on my personal blog because I set a low bar for what constitutes daily art -- even a two minute gesture drawing does count. I haven't missed a day of that since the start of March, so it's become a good habit. I recommend daily art in one of my Creativity articles and still do now that I've kept it up under difficult circumstances. It helps keep me focused and the results in terms of improving my art are dramatic, especially my sketching ability. I'm getting much better at capturing my cat's fluid poses accurately from life. You may have noticed a drop off in the number of new articles posted. That's why -- the Kansas weather has been wiping me out and it takes more work to do a good article with a demo, scan all its stages, write and edit the article than it does to just do a quick two-minute gesture sketch of my cat and post it to my blog. But the very good news is that we'll be leaving around June 1st -- although I may still be tied up for a few weeks unpacking and settling in, I should be back to working on the site more intensively as soon as my new place is livable. I look around and most of what I've got is books, art supplies and electronics. It's funny but other than the furniture, that's the stuff that's really important. I don't have much stuff that's just for memorabilia unless it's the art on my walls. I made a start on packing today and think that it'll go well. Those of you who have tried the Robs Art link on eBay and found no listings in past weeks, I apologize. During the annual Spring Slump, I wasn't doing as many of the small pieces and ACEOs or listing them on eBay, focusing more on my sketchbook and works not really for sale, so very often I didn't have new listings up. I have some up now though and will try to keep at least a few listings around most of the time so y'all don't get too frustrated looking for the eBay goodies! That's it for this time, wish me luck and stable weather this next three weeks. The sooner the packing's done, the sooner I can get back to what I'd love to be doing -- writing about oil pastels and doing new demos!

Apr 23, Artistic Risks

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:53:26 GMT

Artistic risks come along when you want to do something better than you've ever done and you're not sure how to get it. Tips for gaining confidence and taking risks.

Apr 16, Thinner Wash

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:49:36 GMT

Using a thinner wash on canvas, canvas board or canvas paper can give an effect like a turpentine-wash style of oil pastels painting with layers of transparent color.

Apr 16, Walter Foster 159 -- Heads in Oil Pastels

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:32:20 GMT

Walter Foster 159, Heads in Oil Pastels is another great volume in the Walter Foster series. Some pages written and drawn by Walter Foster as well as author Stella Mackie.

Apr 16, Oil Pastels Workstation

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:54:53 GMT

The Oil Pastels Workstation is a good beginner book with an added plus -- all the supplies you need to get started!

Apr 16, Change of Plans

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:15:16 GMT

While I had planned to set up independent lightfastness testing on all the brands of oil pastels I own, this year isn't the time to do it. Recently my family's been considering a move to a different state. We will be moving, but don't know when as that involves selling the house and getting a new house. Rather than start the testing and then cut it off after a few months, I'd rather get settled into the new house in Arkansas first and know I'll have a year in one place to measure the results. Sorry to disappoint those that were waiting for the lightfastness tests to begin, but this is better for the long term. For one thing, waiting a year will give me time to acquire full color ranges in some of the better artist grade brands that I love, such as Sennelier and Neopastel. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get a full range set of Holbeins to test. I've been working on the site again though as the April weather finally let up enough for me to start getting things done. For the past three days I've been adding a page a day and hope to go on doing so. Aside from the book review section that I'm working on now, I have plans for many more demos and for subject-related demos on landscapes, animals, portraits and other favorite subjects like florals. Subscribe to my RSS feed and you'll see every new article as it comes in! I purchased some more oil pastels books -- specifically on oil pastels -- that I'll begin reviewing today. One of them is a lot of fun, the Oil Pastel Workstation comes complete with a set of good student oil pastels and pages of good cartridge paper in dark green and white. Maybe that's the page I'll write today!

Apr 15, Books on Oil Pastels

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:02:51 GMT

Books on oil pastels reviewed. Some books on pastels or oil painting also have sections on oil pastels or techniques that adapt well.

Apr 15, Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:50:46 GMT

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting reviewed -- this 1929 classic focuses on pastel and oil painting but can help oil pastelists with every aspect of painting landscapes.

Apr 14, Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:20:03 GMT

Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner is a good introduction for any artist new to the medium.

Apr 13, Gallery

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:01:47 GMT

A gallery of fine art by Robert A. Sloan, may later include student work and select other artists' work in oil pastels.

Apr 12, Kenneth Leslie book

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:07:44 GMT

The Kenneth Leslie book, Oil Pastel Materials and Techniques, is a famous classic published in the 90s, now out of print, it's still recommended by every serious oil pastel painter I know.

Mar 25, Colour Shapers

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:37:52 GMT

Royal Sovereign Colour Shapers come in five shapes, three hardnesses and a variety of sizes. They are very useful for blending and edging with oil pastels.

Mar 25, Sgraffito

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:37:57 GMT

Sgraffito is an old Italian term for a traditional technique of exposing one layer of color by scraping through layers above it, a technique that works well for fine details in oil pastels.

Mar 21, Spring Cleaning Nearly Done

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:06:19 GMT

It's a good thing too. My disabilities made something that would've taken only a few days of bustling activity for an abled person over a month of living in chaos. I have floor space again! The stuff that needs to be sorted is reduced to a laundry basket of stuff to box, store or find places for. My new drafting table and taboret are assembled. The taboret was easy. One day's resting up after getting its casters on was enough to get back to doing physical things again. My drafting table was tougher -- assembly took an entire day of 10 minute sprints with 2-3 hour rests and then a week's resting up. The joy of having drawer space for sundry small, important, easily lost tools will last for many years to come. I had a week's sick days without doing much of anything afterward. Now I'm back at the keyboard again. Miraculously, I managed to keep up Daily Art for a blog challenge at my Livejournal blog and my friend Diana Potts is doing daily art with me through March. April will be daily art too! For me almost all of it will be in oil pastels, of course! I have many new articles to write. Book reviews on great books I've read or bought. Plus the release of my latest acquisition, Colored Pencil Painting Bible by Alyona Nickelsen is inspiring me to colored pencil experiments -- and their equivalents in oil pastels. I should do at least one good realism article on Oil Pastels soon. Some techniques are similar, others are very different in OP but give similar results. Hint: work larger in oil pastels, it usually helps. So maybe now that the chaos is down to a mere chore and an ordinary-scale mess to clean up, I'll be able to get back into the habit of daily article writing again. I like that, it's just that instead of habits, I have symptoms. Sometimes the weather knocks me over. Sometimes priorities do that too but I do not give up on things easily. It's a joy to be able to get back in the swing of things after a hiatus. Many of you may have noticed an absence of eBay listings under Rob's Art. Some things go by the wayside -- and ACEOs for the eBay market slid out of my time and energy range more than a month ago. Sorry about that. I will get back to doing them when the weather lightens up a bit and I get more caught up on the other things I'm doing. Meanwhile, my Etsy store does have half a dozen small format art listings, all of them good paintings in soft pastels or oil pastels. Check it out at http://robertsloan2.etsy.com and enjoy. More to come soon!

Mar 21, Rumination

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:42:10 GMT

Rumination means painting without painting -- daydreaming about creating art can make you a better artist!

Mar 21, Walnut Hollow Oil Pencils

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:09:48 GMT

Walnut Hollow oil pencils, favorite of woodcrafters, blend invisibly with oil pastels to sharpen edges and create details.

Mar 11, Drawing from Memory

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:55:48 GMT

Drawing from memory is a challenge for any artist, one that unlocks the key to imagination and creating original artwork.

Mar 10, Tortillons and Stumps, Low-Cost Disposable Blenders

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:16:00 GMT

Tortillons and stumps are cheap, disposable blending tools available anywhere. Useful for pastels, graphite and colored pencils, they are also great for oil pastels.

Mar 8, Walter Foster 152 reviewed, Painting with Oil Pastels

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:41:09 GMT

Walter Foster volume 152 Painting with Oil Pastels by H. P. McLaughlin reviewed. Good basic instruction and great examples. Classic image-heavy Walter Foster.

Mar 8, Gaps in New Page Posting

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:04:22 GMT

Spring is the worst time of the year for me, since the Kansas weather is so changeable that if you don't like it, wait fifteen minutes. Sometimes a week or two of sick days will go by while I struggle to catch up with classwork, continue to work on portraits or just spend a lot of time sleeping as much as my cat to rest up. Recently I began a thorough spring cleaning of my studio area and became convinced I needed a better setup. A real drafting table is important for being able to lay out multiple trays from large sets of oil pastels or better still, multiple brands at once on serious paintings. After purchasing many different brands of inexpensive oil pastels for review, I started finding a shortage of storage space for my art supplies. Thus a new taboret is also on the way, it'll arrive in a couple of days. I'll probably review these new purchases in Tools & Stuff, but unlike the oil pastels I'm not in a position to purchase half a dozen different tables and compare them! So I might keep that to one good page on studio organization and show how I keep track of a lot of different art supplies within a compact space. Your setup will vary with your resources and other than advantages like being able to tilt or having extra storage drawers built in, a table is a table. Your kitchen table may be just as good, I just didn't have one in my room! My library of oil pastel books has expanded, so I separated Books into its own section for reviews and have begun with today's review of How to Paint Wildlife Portraits in Oil Pastels, Oil and Acrylic by H. P. McLaughlin. I'll try to do one of the projects from each book to demonstrate them in the reviews, especially the books that do include step by step demonstrations. Meanwhile, I am participating in a Daily Art challenge on Livejournal. Stages in larger paintings count and so do quick gesture sketches, which is about all I can manage on a sick day. But if you would like to see my daily art during March, it's posted at my LiveJournal blog. Enjoy! Oil pastels are a wonderful medium and nothing is more liberating than picking up the cheap ones and just sketching on canvas paper or your sketchbook -- it's a wonderful way to develop ideas for any serious painting you want to do. I'll be back with more updates soon, weather permitting.

Mar 8, Walter Foster 173 -- How to Paint Wildlife Portraits Reviewed

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:04:34 GMT

Walter Foster 173 is How to Paint Wildlife Portraits by H. P. McLaughlin, demonstrating fish, birds and mammals in oils, acrylics and oil pastels. A classic.

Feb 26, Louvre Oil Pastels Product Review

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:54:21 GMT

Louvre oil pastels are mid-price student grade with a dry, firm texture that sets harder after a couple of days.

Feb 26, Niji Oil Pastels Product Review

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:05:25 GMT

Niji oil pastels, available in 36 colors, are among the super low price brands available.

Feb 13, Wet Effects

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:32:11 GMT

Wet effects using watersoluble oil pastels on a landsape underpainted with watercolor.

Feb 11, Commissions

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:58:15 GMT

Commissions can become the main income source for many artists or a good sideline for others. Some tips on getting art commissions and doing them on time.

Feb 11, Galleries

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:40:56 GMT

Galleries specialize in representing fine art, this article is about marketing your art to galleries.

Feb 10, Street Sketching

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:24:00 GMT

Street sketching is the simplest art career to start -- either choose a high traffic public area or sign up for local art fairs..

Feb 10, Art Careers

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:33:54 GMT

Art careers vary from gallery-focused fine artists to commissions, jobs in illustration, design or advertising, street sketching and online self employment. Skilled artists have many choices.

Feb 9, Crumb Control in Oil Pastels

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:28:22 GMT

Crumb control is important for realism in oil pastels, here are some techniques for eliminating smeary crumbs.

Feb 9, Busted up the Monster Long Page...

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:53:01 GMT

If you found the Reviews page too long with all the different products it covered, relax. I haven't eliminated any of the information. I copied off the Paper and Surfaces section and the Tools and Useful Stuff sections into files. Then deleted them from the page and created new pages for them. Tools will have more than product reviews on it, since I plan to do at least one article on how to use the Colour Shapers if not more. Same with Paper and Surfaces really, it's such a vast topic and different surfaces demand different techniques. Anything that has Colourfix primer painted on it will behave pretty much like Colourfix, but it may take different brands and different pressure and techniques to put oil pastel on window glass or wood or paper. Enjoy! Ari purrs and sheds Cat Hairs of Inspiration in your general direction.

Feb 9, Tools and Useful Stuff

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:16:13 GMT

Tools and other useful items to use with oil pastels including blenders, pastel holders, barrier cream.