blueBanksia

Oil paint is an amazing versatile medium. It can be applied in a thick buttery fashion or thinned down to a watery consistency. This versatility opens the door to a number of different painting techniques.

My personal preference is to begin my oil paintings by first sketching out the composition using acrylic paint or with water-soluble oil paints. The popular approach to oil painting is to thin the paint with turpentine to apply your initial layers. Turpentine is quite toxic and I prefer not to work with it. Acrylic or water-soluble oil paints can be thinned down with plain old water and are more pleasant to work with in my opinion.

by Lois Dewitt

A CONTEMPORARY MEDIUM

Oil pastels are a fairly new art medium. In the mid 1920's, the first soft pastel was developed. Called Cray-pas, this soft pastel was considered an upgrade from crayons. It wasn't until 1947, upon the request of the artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Goetz, the materials manufacturer Sennelier set about to create a soft, artists' quality pastel.

Picasso wanted a pastel stick that could be used on a variety of surfaces, like wood, clay or canvas. Goetz want a pastel which could be used with directness and immediacy, and would allow him to work directly on a surface, without brushes, palette knives or any other kind of tool.

by Giselle Luske

Step 1

• Draw / sketch a mountain range with a 2B Pencil
• Lay down a wash - wet on dry - of New Gamboge or Light Yellow
• While the paper is still damp, use Bright Yellow for different cloud formations, plus some light orange for the clouds just over the mountain peaks
• Use tissue paper for taking out some cloud shapes, revealing the Light Yellow again...

... let it dry

by John A Burton

Firstly, there are the pastels themselves. They are made from pure powdered pigment bound with a small quantity of gum binder (low quality pastels have chalk added). Pastels come in many varieties (hard, soft, sticks, pencils, etc.) but they are essentially all the same: the final choice is largely a matter of personal preference.