My last post was about proper storage of oil pastels.

My recommendation is that they are stored as air tight as possible- I will switch to an oversized zipper bag inside the tote at work, and I’ll keep using my nearly air tight clasping tote at home.

I decided to take some pics of what the sticky oil pastels look like in my sketchbook.

The above image is of my home set which has been stored air tight. The feel of them is still silky smooth and feels like drawing with lipstick. There are a few colors that are more transparent, particularly the greens and browns.

This image shows the work version. You can see that the application is significantly thicker. The color also seems to stick to itself and lift off the page. You can see that some colors are more opaque, this is only because there is so much MORE oil pastel on the page. (The colors are also in a different order from my package. Kids.)

It was really startling how different they 2 packages of pastels feel.

As a note, the pastels were both applied to the same paper in air conditioning. I have noticed that when I’ve take the work oil pastels outside for en plein air, they are smoother and less sticky.

Interested in reading something like this, but a month earlier? Check out my Ko-Fi page here. Consider buying me a coffee so I can continue to explore art materials and manners of storage.