What Crafts Can I Make With Oil Pastels?
The variety of materials that will accept and hold oil pastels makes them easy to use for just about any craft. Their shape and size make them familiar to anyone who has ever held a Crayon, including children. Yet the brilliant colors they produce surprise and delight artists of all ages. Oil pastels work well for any craft that will be hung on a wall or displayed on a table. For any artwork that will be held or touched, apply an oil pastel fixative to set the surface of the craft item. The fixative can be found in any craft store.
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Pets From Pictures
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Oil pastels are often a medium for creating pictures of animals. Since they never completely dry, the picture can be continually reworked and blended to look like realistic animal fur's texture and coloring. It can be difficult to draw animals, however, so it's best to paint from a photo of the actual pet. If someone doesn't have a photo of their pet, a stuffed animal can be used as a model. Sketch out the animal with two colors, then fill in the details with other colors. Draw details with the edges of the oil pastels, especially facial features. The brightness of the oil pastels brings out the vivid colors of animals' eyes. Use a blunt tool to blend the colors together for realism.
Inner-Self Portraits
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People are extremely difficult to draw with accuracy in pastels, so go for the "inner self" instead. Apply the vivid colors of oil pastels to give a zany, light-hearted quality to the drawings so no one will expect them to capture the person's physical appearance. Instead, see if others can interpret the inner traits the artist has depicted. Happiness can be seen as a twinkle in the eyes, for example, and anger in a tightly set mouth. Oil pastels work well on materials besides canvas and paper, so experiment with working on wood, metal or plastic.
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Fluttering Flags
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Artists have tried using oil pastels on a wide array of unconventional materials, including waxed paper. The way oil pastels pick up the light sometimes gives them a translucent quality. When worked on waxed paper, it becomes ideal for making flags that flutter in the breeze. Get a feel for using the pastels on oil by creating a U.S. flag; then go wild with a garden flag of your own design.
Mod Masks
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The brilliant colors that can be achieved with oil pastels let even novice crafters make masks that pop. The colors can be applied thinly, as chalk or paint, or thick enough to carve designs in them. Warm the pastels to make the colors go on thick. Or put some of the oil pastel on a board, then add paint medium or even other oil paint and mix them together. The result is a consistency that can be painted on with a brush, but still has the vivid colors of the oil pastels. Paint on any kind of mask, whether Styrofoam, fabric, plastic or ceramic. Since oil pastels don't fully dry, these masks are best hung on the wall as art.
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References
- Photo Credit Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images
