Oil pastels are a rich and flexible medium that can provide a variety of finished looks, smooth blending or thick painterly layers. In this post we'll show you how to refine a loose oil pastel drawing into a smooth painterly work of art. Oil pastels can be blended with most oil painting mediums including, turpentine, mineral spirits and all oils... In this project we'll just use a little Utrecht Linseed Oil.

This first image shows our supplies, a set of Van Gogh Oil Pastels, a filbert brush and Utrecht Linseed Oil. You can also see that we've roughed in our drawing on a Master Panel with the two colors we want to carry throughout the whole work, yellow ochre and burnt sienna. The next step is to bring some of the other colors into your still life.

We continue on building color with the oil pastels, keeping it loose knowing that the details and blending will be done with a paint brush and linseed oil. The objects in the still life retain a light value, warranting a nice dark background of burnt umber and burnt sienna.

These images show the blended work. This effect was achieved by dipping into the linseed oil and blending together the layers of oil pastels. The brush was cleaned with mineral spirits between colors to keep the image from getting muddy. In the second image we've gone back in with the pastels to work in a few more details and some shading. You can continue to work between the pastels and oil & brush until you're satisfied with the results.

Here is a detail of the drawing before and after blending. You can see what a difference can be made with a little oil and some brushwork. The amount of blending is a personal choice and results will vary depending on your surface. This was done on a smooth panel and gives a light wash effect, using a porous surface like watercolor paper or unprimed canvas gives a totally different result. Experiment and enjoy!