ROUND ROBIN 2 and Oil Pastels

"Humming + Puddle" and "Pop + Night"

By Katy Wu

For Round Robin 2 I decided to try my hand at a medium I hadn't used in a very long time: oil pastels. What attracted me to this medium were the bright vibrant colors, the creamy consistency, and they reminded me of crayons (I used Sennelier pastels). I'm somewhat familiar with soft pastels but oil pastels have fairly different properties. They do not blend/smudge easily, they are good for making broad strokes and large shapes, and they are not very forgiving. This meant I had to figure out which colors I needed and how to get the colors I didn't have in color studies before starting the actual painting.

Here are some photos of scratch paper I experimented on for paintings from Round Robin 2:

Since oil pastels don't take to smudging well, I had to overlay darker colors over lighter colors to see if I could get the results I wanted. You can only overlay so many colors (about 3) on top of each other before it gets muddy or the paper stops accepting anymore medium.

Once I find a combination of colors that works, I would write the names of the colors down so I could remember them later. In a way, I am figuring out any part of the painting that requires a gradation of colors or a specific color that needs to be mixed.

When starting the actual painting I would work from light to dark. It's much easier to cover up any mistakes if you put a darker color over a lighter color with oil pastel. If I messed up I could only scrape some of the oil pastel off with a knife.

Oil pastels are like crayons for adults, they look like juicy oil paintings, and it's fun to do large expressive paintings with them without having to fuss over any details!

Daniela will be making a post about her work on Round Robin the following week, see you then!