Hi! I am working my way into oil pastels and I love them (silicone blenders and a “colour shaper” tool, cleaned with a little bit of mineral oil, seems to work best for me for blending/finer line blending, much like with chalk pastels). I am wondering if there are any specific brands of colored pencils that work best over top of oil pastels? I am aiming for an easier creation of finer lines and details. I have heard good things about oil-based pencils, especially Polychromos, but was hoping for more information.
Straight to answer your question. Colored pencils cannot make a mark on top of oil pastels. They would only scratch off the oil pastels application.
Polychromos are oil based, however they are considered one of the hardest colored pencils that can stay sharp longer than the wax based colored pencils such as prismacolor premier. In other words, trying to apply colored pencils of any kind, wax or oil based would not work. It would be just like trying to remove oil pastels from the paper or canvas.
After reading your question, I went and tried a polychromos on some oil pastels drawings of mine. The one on the left was from a Gettin’ Sketchy, I did mine on artagain black paper with oil pastels. The one with the boat was done on pastelmat with oil pastels. I tried doing an application of Polychromos colored pencil on each drawing to try for myself. I found that a light pressure application of the polychromos over oil pastels actually covers with pigment the area it is applied on, in both papers; however, when I tried to do a crisp line, the pencil dug out the oil pastel from the artagain paper which it’s a smoother paper. But when I tried the line on the pastelmat, the line was fairly good especially if the area I tried it on had a thin layer of oil pastels which means the sanded paper still had tooth for thE pencil line to be cleaner. I’m sure there are some techniques out there to mix oil pastels and Colored pencils. Anyway, it was interesting to try it and at least now I personally know that some pigment from colored pencils actually sticks to oil pastels.
I just wanted to share my experiment. If anyone knows any other technique please share with us.
@Aestarii what I’ve found helps to blend oil pastel and colored pencils is this.
I use a combination of oil pastel brands on Pastelmat from hard to soft.
Cray-Pas Expressionist (hardest) sticks I break up and remove from the wrapper. Then Mungyo (softer), then Sennelier (softest).
When applying the first many layers, I use use a dry bristle brush (or stencil brush) to lift pigment off the oil pastel stick and scrub into the paper. (Look up Julie Podstolski’s brush and pencil technique). Amazing colored pencil artist who starts this way.
Then, I add thin oil pastel layers with linseed oil with a small brush off a palette and let that layer cure a few days on the paper. From there I use Prismacolor waxed based pencils with a similar color to glide across the thin layers of oil pastel. The pencils are more for adding sharper accents. I don’t get into color shapers until the final layers of thicker pastel (ex. Sennelier).
If you build up thicker layers of oil pastel, you could still come back and use some ink for sharper details. I find the Faber-Castel Pitt brush pens work well with their soft, flexible nib.
Welcome to the forum! I hope to see you here often. Thank you so much for your very knowledgeable informative post. When working with oil pastels I’ve never used solvents or mixed them with other media before, only the oil pastel blender. The techniques you have kindly shared with us are very useful for our future oil pastels projects. Thank you so much. I hope to see some of your artwork poster here!
