2025 Birthday Stash: Oil Pastels

It’s that time of year again. And today I was delighted to receive this set of 125 Sennelier oil pastels, a big numerical upgrade on my existing set of 24.

I’ve already created and laminated a complete set of swatches:

There are two things I’m especially looking forward to now:

• Using this extended range of the colours. Look at those flesh tones! And those iridescent and fluorescent colours! But most of all, I’m looking at all those reds, yellows and purples. When I extended my range of soft pastels from the green landscape and cloudy sky sets to include lots of warm colours, the quality of my work took a big step forwards. Could the same happen to my oil pastel paintings when I expand from 24 landscape colours (with lots of greens and greys) to something covering the whole colour wheel?
• Smoothing out colours using kitchen paper. I’m not sure I’ve ever done this in a painting but I found myself doing it during the swatching and was amazed at the range of values and textures that appeared on the paper.
• Blending colours using the “medium transparent” pastel. It’s not something I’ve ever used before but it’s some sort of colourless oil pastel that blends colours together. Sounds interesting.

So expect to see some oil pastel paintings (heatwaves permitting). And news of all the new books that I’ve received and will eventually be reviewing.