Pastel Shaving/Dusting Technique

I first came across the idea of shaving my oil pastels from an article by Karen Margulis:

http://kemstudios.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/try-new-pastel-technique.html



And she got the idea from Bill Creevy who discusses the technique in his book "The Pastel Book". Apparently it is a technique used by Degas. She also shares a link to this post by Richard McKinley:

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/articles/art-demos-techniques/pastel-pointers-the-technique-of-dusting

pastel dusting technique

She uses soft pastels and I couldn't get it to work - the powder just didn't stick for me no matter what I tried. So then I thought well if I can't get soft pastel dust to stick, then maybe if I use sticky oil pastels I will have more success. And I did!

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First, I rubbed oil pastel over the paper to create a base for the shavings to stick to, then I shaved lots of colours to create a sand-like effect, squashing them into the base layer by placing a clear plastic sheet on top & rubbing. I then drew into the oil pastel with a 4b pencil to create dark lines and scraped with a cocktail stick for highlights. These are only experimental thumbnails, but I think I can progress this technique further by playing with the base colours to create tone.

It would also be interesting to use this technique to do a seascape - for the sand and the seaspray.


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