Sunday, October 4, 2009

Rainbow Trees Abstract Oil Pastel

oil pastel drawing of rainbow trees
I recently took a class in oil pastels and I thought I'd try a different surface. I wanted to experiment before making a major commitment to the work so I decided to do a simple abstract painting of the rainbow trees in Hawaii.
They have a lovely colored bark and the greenery is towards the top, unlike our local trees.
I did this on a heavy watercolor paper that has an odd tooth that is too geometric for watercolor. The surface saturates quickly with color so it becomes difficult to apply additional layers. I found I need to plan the drawing more with this surface but it blends very nicely with a stump. The colors are cleaner and brighter.

10 comments:

  1. Really vibrant colors and an interesting subject. I've tried using oil pastels, but they never seem to dry. How do you fix them? nancy

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  2. Hello Nanke,

    It's my understanding they never do fully dry. I've read that you can spray them with fixative but the artwork always seem to be displayed under glass.

    I got the set of oil pastels with a grouping of art supplies that came with an artist's tote bag and it's interesting to try new things.

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  3. This is gorgeous! I love that rich, expressive color and the composition is so engaging. Reminds me of Wolf Kahn's work. I also enjoyed your previous experiments with oil pastels.

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  4. Ann,

    I had never heard of Wolf Kahn (what a great name) so I looked him up on the net. He does very nice work so thank you by association.

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  5. A pretty abstract. The colors and feeling is happy. Good work.

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  6. Oooooooo, the rich colors! Resplendent!

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  7. Fantastic! It looks so artistic and feels like one of those composed photography with colored filters!

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  8. Wow! Love everything about this...

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  9. I have never tried oil pastels but I like what you did with it, and even experimenting with paper. Nice, bright, bold, very nice. Happy to have found your post on the EDM group.

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