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Loosen up Your Style With Oil Pastels

How to: Expressive Oil Pastel Illustrations (in the Style of the Children's Book Little Birder)

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Sparking Creativity | Kids with Oil Pastels | Art Tutorial

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Posts in Oil Pastel

Loosen up Your Style With Oil Pastels

Oil pastels are an exciting and versatile art medium. Their convenient versatility can be the aspect of oil pastels that make them confusing to beginners. There are more than a few ways to use oil pastels. Which way is the right way?

The good news is, one of the greatest freedoms in art is that we are not bound to use the mediums in the same way others use them, or for that matter, how they’re intended to be used.

If you can get comfortable with that, then you can have endless success in oil pastel. This post is about making the most of the oil pastel’s ability to be loose, expressive and imperfect. I will introduce you to the benefits of oil pastel in its loose form. At the end of the post you can find the link to an oil pastel tutorial in the style of my children’s book illustrations.

How to: Expressive Oil Pastel Illustrations (in the Style of the Children's Book Little Birder)

Do you want to use oil pastels but don’t know where to start? In this tutorial I will walk you through the steps to illustrate an oil pastel bird (or any subject matter) in the style of my children’s book “Little Birder: A Field Guide to Birds of the Alphabet”. This stye is bright and impactful and makes the most of oil pastel’s appealing qualities, but it does not require perfection or years of mastery and can be painted in a relatively short time.

This is a great place to start your oil pastel journey or continue to develop your own style using the versatile medium of oil pastels.

Sparking Creativity | Kids with Oil Pastels | Art Tutorial

This style is intentionally imperfect but the defining features of the bright oil pastels, with heavy black outlines, created by expressive markings on black paper is like an elevated version of the crayon scribbles we all know and love. It is amazing how this small change from crayons to oil pastels, white to black paper, and some intentional black outlines will create stunningly eye-catching artwork from the same little hands that brought you that lovely chicken-dog blob that has been hanging on the fridge since it came home from school on Father’s Day.

Oil Pastel, Children's Book, Artwork, Art for Kids, Art ActivitiesJessalyn BeasleyOctober 26, 2022art, art lessons, kids art, kids art lessons, bird art, oil pastel, tutorial

5 Creative Christmas Gift Ideas for Kids (That Aren't Toys)

If you’re like me and you want to find a way to make your kids’ Christmas feel magical, but with a little more life enrichment and a little less nonsense— good news, a little thought on the front end can make the obligatory seasonal spending an opportunity to bring value to our kids lives.

Good news, I’ve done the thinking for you. Below are 5 creative Christmas idea (for creative kids) that aren’t toys.

Beyond Wildlife- A Series of Mini Oil Pastel Landscapes

It may not seem like it, but I DO paint things other than birds and wildlife. In fact, until recent years I almost exclusively worked in portraits or figurative work. I really can’t explain the shift, except with the notion that change is the nature of life. I recently took a short break from wildlife to create a mini landscape in a vertical orientation. Something quick, something different, something filling. I became addicted to working in the narrow framing of a vast scene and on the bite size canvas that forced expressive strokes and letting go of detail. Within the week I had a pile of mini landscapes.

Artwork, Oil PastelJessalyn BeasleyJuly 13, 2019oil pastel, artist, wildlife artist, landscape, landscape painting, cloud painting, storm, landscape drawing, skyscape, cloud portrait, oil pastel cloudsComment