Oil Pastels
- sadiemcarfagno
- Nov 7, 2025
- 3 min read
Materials:
$58.79 Winsor Newton Oil Pastels, 30 pack
$9.74 Artist's Loft Oil Pastels, 36 pack
$6.99 48 pack Necessities set
$5.02 Crayola Oil Pastels, 28 pack
$51.70 class 336 pack
$10.72 Portfolio Series (Crayola) Oil Pastels, 24 pack
$89.99 class 300 pack
Paper:
Price, Strathmore Sketch Spiral Notebook, 50lb, 9" x 12", 100 pages
Price, Canson Sketch Spiral Notebook, 50lb, 9" x 12", 100 pages
Price, U.S. Art Supply Black Paper Pad, 64lb, 11" x 14", 30 pages
Other Surfaces:
Plastic wrap
Recommended by:
Exploring Studio Materials, Teaching Creative Art Making to Children by Mary Hafeli
Foil
Plastic shopping bag
(I originally couldn't find plastic wrap, don't do it, I tried so you didn't have to...)
Reusing a gusseted poly (type of stiffer plastic) bag from my trash
Material Findings:
Winsor Newton
applied the smoothest, gripped the paper with the best coverage
were the brightest brand on black paper
don't come in class packs
are $58.79 when the other brands are around $5-$10 for a similar amount
worked on foil unlike the other brands
terrible on plastic wrap, grips and pulls at the plastic too much
Stunning color and perfect coverage on stiffer plastic
Artist's Loft Oil Pastels
Worked best on plastic wrap
Brightest on black paper (besides the insanely pricey Winsor Newton oil pastels)
Blended better than regular crayola oil pastels
but not as well as the crayola portfolio series
Crayola Oil Pastels
Can make rich new colors depending on the color pairing
Portfolio Series (Crayola) Oil Pastels
Better application than the regular crayola oil pastels
Better blending than the regular crayola oil pastels
Brighter than regular crayola oil pastels
Conclusions:
I would recommend the Portfolio Series oil pastels as best quality for the price and available in bulk for the classroom. This is because they performed best on regular white paper. For using black paper or more unconventional surfaces like plastic I would recommend Artist's Loft. As a teacher I would ideally have both and store them organized separately. I found Winsor Newton to be the best quality but an unlikely choice to buy for a classroom with the price. In the book Exploring Studio Materials, Hafeli recommends trying to use oil pastels on plastic wrap. I found it was hard to keep the plastic wrap flat enough on the table to draw without it being pulled around. However when I tried using a stiffer plastic it worked wonderfully.
Teaching:
I think I need to brush up on my ability to explain blending techniques to another person because I haven't used oil pastels since 8th grade. However it was one of the first mediums I was obsessed with and when I started using them in 4th grade I realized I wanted to become an artist. I felt uncertain I would still know how to best use the medium but I felt my comfort level using them come joyfully rushing back.
I loved discovering how the stiffer plastic could reflect light like an eye or mimic other glossy kinds of surfaces (like the surface of water for example) when layered overtop a drawing. I would be curious to see how cheaply I could buy stiffer, clear plastic bags in bulk. Or giant sheets of this stiffer plastic in bulk. If I could convince my father to give me the giant bags of this type of clear plastic my families mattresses came in that he's kept for when they move apartments -that would be awesome.
I would love to create a lesson plan where students could draw their eye or an eye of a real or fantasy creature using 2-3 layers of plastic overtop black paper (to be the pupil). Black paper with the plastic may be too expensive so I may have to find an alternative solution. Maybe drawing a black sharpie pupil on foil as the base paper with the layers of plastic on top would reflect light and make the eyes seem to glow brightly from underneath when moving a phone flashlight in front of it or if hung on the wall in the sun.
Comments