Made from pigment mixed with nondrying oil and a wax binder, the first oil pastels were invented by the Osaka-based company Sakura in 1924 for use in Japanese schools. While oil pastels never caught on with Japan’s educators, they interested artists—including Pablo Picasso, who collaborated with the French manufacturer of art supplies Sennelier to develop a higher-quality version of Sakura’s product. Sennelier’s launch of their oil pastel in 1949 was followed Holbein’s in the 1980s and Caran d’Aches’s in the 1990s.
A cleaner medium than chalk pastels, but still softer and more blendable than either colored pencils or crayons, oil pastels are a great tool for both sketching and making finished pieces. Thinned with oil or solvents, they can also be used for painting. A concern with oil pastels is that they never completely dry and should ideally be treated with a fixative or framed behind glass. But they make up for that in ease of use, workability, and vivid color.
Source: artnews.com
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