During the last
session of my Cartooning & Comics classes, I introduced Crayola
Oil pastels to offer the children (aged 5 - 12 years) a different
medium. They had worked with pencils, coloured pencils, crayons, and
markers already but were immediately attracted to the bright colours
and liked that they could blend the colours.
Before I bought
the pastels, I did some research as they were quite low-priced. I
wanted to avoid buying a product of poor quality that would result in
a frustrating experience for the students.
Despite the good
reviews, I was still sceptical. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised
when we used the pastels in class. The colours are well pigmented.
Due to the hexagonal shape, it was less likely that the sticks rolled
off the table. The solid sticks were a good size compared to many
low-cost brands. They felt nice in your hand and were less likely to
break in the hands of children. To avoid stained tables, tablecloths
or clothes, I suggest to cover the workspace and wear clothes that
can get dirty or a smock. At least roll up your sleeves.
While you can use
your fingers to blend these certified non-toxic oil pastels, I prefer
to teach the proper use of materials to the kids from the beginning.
Not all oil pastels are non-toxic and blending with your fingers can
get very messy. Therefore, I gave every child some paper towel
sheets. Cotton swabs would also work great.
For our first
project, we drew on black construction paper. The colours did not
bleed through the paper and the bright colours really popped out.
When we used the pastels in our regular sketchbook, they also did not
bleed through but transferred to the page on top.
Using dark colours
next to a light colour was a challenge for most of the children. When
they outlined their characters, they smudged the lighter colour. Most
of the children also had some colour on their hands from rubbing
inadvertently over their drawing. Children who had drawn the
character quite small found it difficult to create the details with
the chunky sticks.
Often, kids do not have a lot of patience. That is why most of the students loved that the soft and creamy pastels covered large areas fast. It will be hard to get them to use crayons after they have worked with oil pastels. With the hard crayons, it takes a lot more time and pressure to get a solid cover of an area, they do not blend, and the colours are a lot less vibrant. However, their tips make it a little easier to colour smaller areas of an image.
Often, kids do not have a lot of patience. That is why most of the students loved that the soft and creamy pastels covered large areas fast. It will be hard to get them to use crayons after they have worked with oil pastels. With the hard crayons, it takes a lot more time and pressure to get a solid cover of an area, they do not blend, and the colours are a lot less vibrant. However, their tips make it a little easier to colour smaller areas of an image.
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| The star in the right hand corner was drawn with crayons. |
I can definitely recommend the Crayola oil pastels for both children and adults who want to practice with oil pastels. I had a lot of fun creating my little Pikachu and Olaf characters. The pastels are recommended for children over 4 years.
