This oil pastels painting was done as an attempt at realism using oil pastels.  I was inspired by looking through the magnificent artwork of Alyssa Monks, and I decided I wanted to push my artwork further than I have previously attempted.

The piece was done on a white 8×10 Pastelbord (made by Ampersand), with a mix of Sennelier oil pastels and Mungyo student quality oil pastels.  The Mungyos I used mostly for a base layering, although as I worked on it, I went back to the Mungyos here and there, because the skin tone colors of the Mungyo oil pastels were just right for this piece.

There was a lot of flaking with the Mungyos which gave some difficulty in working with.  I somehow managed to either blend in the flakes or wipe them away.  This wasn’t always easy to deal with.  The flakes got to be very messy to try and maneuver around with.  Blending was done mostly with the Sennelier as I would try to rub in the Mungyo flakes and somehow get it to all blend in together.  Clearly, superior products are needed when attempting realism as there is simply little room for error!

Ultimately, I found that I could push myself further with this piece and in the end I am happy with the result.  I think I can take it even farther, though.  Being a first serious attempt at realism with oil pastels, I don’t think it turned out too badly.  I can see where some areas could have been improved, and I can also justify some issues by my continued use of the cheap Mungyo oil pastels.

Next time around I hope to have a wider variety of Sennelier oil pastels to work with.  I also feel I have a better understanding of layering of colors and with the medium itself.

To end this post, I took a picture for fun, of most of the oil pastels I used to create this piece with:

Feel free to leave comments and opinions about this piece using the Comments Form below.

– Eric

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