This Oil Pastels lesson was another excellent lesson from the book Art Labs for Kids. Lillie helped me with this lesson and thoroughly enjoyed creating art of one of her most favourite toys, Winnie the Poo.
Art Lab: Oil Pastels: Trying Out The Medium
For every lesson I do with my girls, I always give them the opportunity to try out the medium they will be working with first. This is very important if you have a perfectionist as it gives them an opportunity to try it out without judging themselves too harshly. Here, Lillie grabbed one of her many Winnie the Poo teddies and they all attempted an oil pastel drawing:
As you can see they are all very happy with their drawings, even Charlotte who didn’t even do one!
Art Lab: Oil Pastels – Artist Study: Joe Blajda
Our artist study for this lesson was Joe Blajda, who has created many many oil pastels of various stuffed toys. When I was doing my art GCSE, I remember doing all sorts of takes on soft toys, from collages, chalk and paint, as well as oil pastels. Pastels are hard to use but once you get the hang of them they are quite a forgiving media, meaning mistakes are easy to rectify.
I always try to photocopy the picture the girls study for them to include in their notebooks:
I love the book they are building up of different techniques and artist studies. Especially the artist studies – they tend to be of less well known modern artists and it is a pleasure to learn about them!
Art Lab: Oil Pastels – Creating their own Original Art
Once the girls had chosen the subject of their oil pastel drawing, they settled in for the afternoon:
Becca really, really enjoyed working with oil pastels, but Abigail not so much:
She was not happy with how her art turned out:
But Becca was very happy!
Immediately, Abs started over until she produced something she felt she could be proud of:
The girls did well, didn’t they?
Art Labs: Our Other Lessons
I love working with oil pastels. They’re so fun.