How To Mix Pencil Crayon With Oil Pastel.
It’s very difficult to come up with some sort of original technique in art. Sure, they are lots of clever ways of mixing different mediums and doing different things, but they are what other artists have thought of. Coming up with your own idea is not so easy, but when you finally do you will feel pretty smug!
I managed to find a new way of drawing a while back. Well, at least I think it’s a new way. The thing about art is that there are hundreds of thousands of artists trying out new methods every single day. How am I ever going to really know if it is something original or not?
The other thing is that I’m about to tell you what it is; hence it will no longer be my technique alone… Oh, well. What the hell.
This idea is for using pencil crayons and oil pastels together. Each of your materials needs to be of a high quality or it will just not work at all. Buy some thick pastel paper (I use Daler’s ‘Murano’) and tape it to a drawing board. Draw your basic design on the paper with a light coloured crayon and then block in all of the main colours with your oil pastels. Try to cover the whole of the paper and not to leave any blank areas.
When you have done this, start to draw over it all with pencil crayon; a lot of the oil pastel will begin to come off and you will need to keep wiping your picture gently with a tissue. It’s quite messy, so brush it all onto a sheet of newspaper or something. You should now find that your work is developing a lovely, blended sheen. Continue to work on it and, if necessary, add a little more oil pastel to thinner areas.
And that’s about it. If you want to add more detail to your work then you will need to go over it with harder crayons. W.H.Smith’s own range are actually one of the best for this.
One last thing; when your picture is done, don’t use fixative on it!!! If you do, then it will all go super-shiny and end-up looking like a mirror. I know about this ‘technique’ because I’ve tried that out as well…