Oil Pastel Step by Step by Nathan Rohlander

He gives a brief history of oil pastel, then lists his materials and techniques.

Some techniques he uses are: scraping back, blending with oil pastel, crosshatching, stippling, drawing back into with a pencil, smudging with finger, highlighting, blending with turpentine/gamsol, and using an acrylic toned base.

He doesn't specify the substrate he uses other than "paper or gessoed rag paper". However I think it works because he seals and tones the paper with fixative or one or more layers of matte medium tinted with acrylic paint before applying the oil pastel. Which also gives him the option to scrape back to the original drawing if he chooses.

The paintings in this book ranged were around 12 x 18.

He has a lot of examples of how he works. He does a pencil sketch which is then sealed before starting to apply the pastel. In general he works dark to light and background to foreground. Sometimes he creates a white border around the picture by taping. He squints to locate the values. To create more atmospheric perspective he lightly goes over the background with white. For fine details he will use a graphite pencil or conte pencil to scratch detail into an even layer of oil pastel. Put a piece of paper under your hand to prevent smearing or also can apply workable fixative. When drawing bottles use a center line with a perpendicular line to create ovals. He uses a kneaded eraser to correct mistakes.





isbn: 1-60058-133-1 (c) 2010