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 cats eye with Derwent pastel pencils, then repeated the drawing with my Caran dAche Luminance waxbased pencil. The drawing done with pastel pencils darkened significantly when I sprayed it with the fixative, while the eye drawn with the waxbased pencil maintained its original color and value. The conclusion is that, with oil pastels, only waxbased and oilbased pencils should be used if you plan to apply any kind of fixative to your painting upon completion. Dont repeat my mistake :) Another important tip when working with oil pastels and pencils is to start with th