Oil pastels, or otherwise known as wax oil crayons, are mediums for painting or drawing with the characteristics that are similar to pastels and wax crayons. Oil pastels are considered a fast medium because they are easy to paint with and convenient to carry, and because of this they are used quite often for sketching, for drawing, for very detailed work, and for keeping work maintained.

The greater or lesser ratio of the pigment added to the oil and wax binder determines the higher or lower quality of the oil pastels. The finer the quality of the oil pastels allows for the oil pastels to have richer colors and finer techniques to appear on the canvas because they are soft and velvety caused by the proportions of the oil and wax mixed with the pigments.

Oil pastels are made from a mixture of the pigment just like is used in the oil paints; a wax that is usually vegetable oil, beeswax and mixed with oil. Turpentine, mineral spirits or other liquids similar are very often used as a blending tool to give the drawing a wash effect on the canvas that is similar to watercolor paintings.

Oil pastels can also be blended with your finger to smooth them out on the canvas also and can be used over watercolor paintings, over a gouache background, mixed with pastels and pastel pencils, with oil paint or over a dried oil painting and with ink. So there are many different ways and combinations that these oil pastels can be used and each use give a different texture on the canvas and different look.

There are many techniques used along with the oil pastels such as building up layers of color with the oil pastels which is called layering; under painting which is a first layer of paint applied to the ground and this serves as the base for the layers of paint to follow; and then there is the scraping down or sgraffito.

The surface that is chosen to apply these oil pastels for your drawing can determine how the drawing is going to look after being completed. If oil pastels are used lightly on Darcy form these results are like the pastels chalks. Paper is used most often and many companies have paper made especially suitable for the oil pastels, but these mediums can be used on other surfaces, as canvas, wood, metal hardboard, glass, Brostol board, primed panel and canvas panels.

Oil pastels never dry out so it is very important to keep them protected by applying a special fixative to the paint or putting the paining in a sleeve and then inside a frame. Another way to preserve your oil pastels drawing on canvas is to moisten a brush in white spirit, turpentine, linseed oil, or another type of vegetable oil or solvent applied over your surface. Oil pastels on canvas make a very appealing drawing and can be preserved if the right precautions are taken.

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