Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner: Basic Lessons in Becoming a Good Painter

Lessons progress simply and clearly from easy subjects and techniques to the more difficult and complex. First, artists learn how to use oil pastels to create traditional paintings in still life, landscape, and portraiture. Then, they’ll discover 12 experimental techniques that push the medium of oil pastel to its limits—including impasto, etching, washes, and monoprint; stencil and screen techniques; and even methods for combining oil pastel with soft pastel and mixed media.

Whether one is an an amateur artist or experienced veteran, Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner is the ideal one-stop source for mastering this popular medium.

Oil pastels offer artists a virtually unlimited treasury of creative potential. They’re also considered a safe alternative to soft pastels. Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner shows both new and veteran artists how to make the most of this fabulous medium.

Lessons progress simply and clearly from easy subjects and techniques to the more difficult and complex. First, artists learn how to use oil pastels to create traditional paintings in still life, landscape, and portraiture. Then, they’ll discover 12 experimental techniques that push the medium of oil pastel to its limits—including impasto, etching, washes, and monoprint; stencil and screen techniques; and even methods for combining oil pastel with soft pastel and mixed media.

Whether one is an an amateur artist or experienced veteran, Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner is the ideal one-stop source for mastering this popular medium.

John Elliot wrote the first-ever article on how to use oil pastels for American Artist magazine in 1983. He has work in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian/ National Collection of Fine Arts. His commissions include works for Ronald Reagan and Katharine Hepburn. He lives in Upper Nyack, New York.