Cat on a wall Oil Pastel - painting demo by Lena Rivo

Cat on a wall. Oil pastel (and pencils) on paper. 9x12 inches. Since the face of this cat was too small to paint completely with oil pastels, I had to use colored pencils for details such as the eyes, the nose, and the ears. The pencils I used were pastel pencils, which turned out to be a mistake. After finishing this painting, I decided to test how my pastel pencils would react to Sennelier fixative for oil pastels. I drew a cat’s eye with Derwent pastel pencils, then repeated the drawing with my Caran d’Ache Luminance wax-based pencil. The drawing done with pastel pencils darkened significantly when I sprayed it with the fixative, while the eye drawn with the wax-based pencil maintained its original color and value. The conclusion is that, with oil pastels, only wax-based and oil-based pencils should be used if you plan to apply any kind of fixative to your painting upon completion. Don’t repeat my mistake :) Another important tip when working with oil pastels and pencils is to start with th