Oil pencils are pencils with oil-based lead, making them smooth and easy to use for creating drawings that resemble the characteristics of an oil painting or a drawing done in pastels. Oil pencil drawings incorporate elements of both traditional pencil drawing techniques and oil painting techniques to allow you to create works of art that you can frame and be proud to display in your home. By mastering a few of these basic techniques, you can begin to create your oil pencil masterpieces right away.
Instructions
1. Sketch your initial drawing. Use a standard number 2 pencil for this. Make the lines of your drawing as light as you can. All you want is something to go by as you lay down the colors with your oil pencils. As long as you keep your lines light, they will not be visible once the oil colors have been applied. Start with something simple like a sunflower. This will help you get accustomed to blending and shading oil pencils.
2. Lay a piece of paper on a solid, flat surface. The heavier the paper, the better it will work. You'll be dampening areas and you don't want the paper to wrinkle. Lay your pencils out for easy access and select the color you'll need to begin coloring. If you're doing a sunflower, select brown and green oil pencils. Apply green to the center of the sunflower, then a circle of brown around it. Keep the pressure light as you apply the colors. Go over the brown with a red pencil, again keeping the pressure light.
3. Blend the red and brown together by dipping a tortillon in turpentine. A tortillon is a brush with a rough paper end you can use to blend. Dampen your tortillon with the turpentine and go over the brown and red area to smudge and blend the colors.
4. Darken the center green portion of the flower with small streaks of black color to lift the center of the flower away from the drawing. Once you've done this, dampen the tortillon again and blend the colors.
5. Color the petals of the sunflower with the darkest yellow you have available. Apply the color in smooth lines that follow the petals moving from the base of each to the tip. Keep the color application light around the edges of each petal. When you've applied the yellow, use a very light application of brown around the edge of each petal to create shading and definition.
6. Apply green oil pencil to the leaves. Don't use any of the turpentine to dilute the pencil. The darker you make the green, the richer and healthier the leaves will look. Add black over the top of the green to increase the dark levels, but not so much that the green doesn't show through.
