I am a newbie to oil pastels and in love with them. Can some of courses and tutorials that seem to be geared to soft pastels also be undertaken with oil pastels?
Oil pastels behave very differently from soft pastels. I have only done 1 project with them - the live lesson series that was completed recently. The biggest difference e for me was not being able to use my finger to blend as I do with soft pastels. I have the opposite preference from you and prefer the soft pastels!
This is from a blog post of Matt’s
" Because oil pastels consist of an oil binder, they are less powdery than soft pastels. As a result, oil pastels are more difficult to blend with a finger or a blending stump. Oil pastels can be layered like soft pastels, but only to a certain degree. This has to be taken into consideration when using oil pastels. If too much material is applied to the surface, colors can become muddied.
Another side effect comes when the pastels take up or “pull up” previous applications. Care should be taken to avoid this by planning out the layers of colors that are to be added."
hope that helps!