Precision Drawing with Oil Pastels

[ChristianWeeks]

I wasn't exactly sure which forum to post my question, but I think this should be the right area.

I've started a drawing for the Cooper River Bridge Run T-shirt, which is a large 10k event in Charleston, South Carolina. I wanted to make the picture very vibrant and colorful, so I decided to do it in oil pastels. The bridge is a very large suspension bridge (look at the attached pictures), and I wanted to draw it so that the viewer is looking at the bridge from the front (as if he were on the road, or levitating slightly above). The bridge would be very large and in the foreground on the left side, and fade out to the middle and backgrounds as it moved towards the center. On the right side would be the sun rising and creating a very colorful sky backdrop.

Here is my issue: The bridge has 17 suspender cables on each side of its two support towers. I can easily reduce the number without any noticeable affect (I reduced it to 10), but because of the viewpoint, they all overlap, so the only way to make them noticeable (especially as they get smaller in the distance) is to use a very fine point and be very precise. See where I'm getting at? Pastels aren't necissarly the most precise medium. I was going to use a knife to cut the pastels into finer pointed wedges, but before I did that I figured I should ask if there is any particular method or tool for drawing precisely with pastel crayons.

I would post a picture of my sketch right now but I can't find my camera, and its 18 x 24 so its too large to scan.

[Noah Bradley]

If it were me I'd lay in the background first, then scratch out to get the lines. You could get very precise, thin lines. Single edge razor blade would probably work great.

[Musselfarmstudios]

Noah's right…work back to front…also your drawing sounds big enough for you to use paper as stencils to get the shape of the lines in… either as a deductive process using your eraser or possibly the color that you want the lines to be, but I'd practice the stencil technique else where on a study before committing

Only, I'm not sure how an eraser would work on oil pastels…I work mainly with conte' and nupastels

[ChristianWeeks]

Ahhh ofcourse, I forgot that you can scratch off with pastels. I should have thought of that :) hah thanks.

Musselfarmstudios: I'm kind of confused about the process you are describing. Could you please elaborate a little more?

[•Lindsay•]

Oil pastels aren't much different than oil paints. You can soak a brush in turpenoid, brush some color off of the pastel and paint the lines.

[Musselfarmstudios]

let's see if I can explain it…it's kind of the same process that air brush artists use when they want to get straight lines or certain shapes when air brushing…take a piece of paper and draw out the line, or shape then cut it out with either a pair of scissors or an exacto knife depending on the dimensions of the shape. After you have the shape cut out…place the stencil over the image and then depending on what you want to do…either use your eraser or pastel to make the mark on the paper.

I hope I explained it but if you need I could attempt to post some examples

[2100]

Mask it with tape.

[ChristianWeeks]

Lindsay You know I was wondering if there was another medium I could use just for the lines that would look natural with the pastels. Alas, I have never used oil paints before and don't have any, not to mention I haven't had good luck with painting straight lines with other types of paint. What does the turpenoid do, though?

Musselfarmstudios Yeah I understand a lot better now. Thanks :)

2100 I knew that was an option from the beginning, but I'm always afraid that the tape will rip off some of the paper. Is there any kind of special artists' tape or something that can be taken off easily?

[ChristianWeeks]

Alright I have some pictures now so I can better explain my predicament. The first picture kind of shows why I can't really scrape off and go over with a different color. I want the suspender cables to shine bright yellow in contrast with the darker colors immidiately around them, and as you can see, even when scraped off with a knife, some of the black / red / any other color is left behind and smudges with the yellow, severely decreasing its pure hue.

The bottom is my drawing so far; I only have the sky done. The bridge was just in pencil so I quickly went over the lines in photoshop so you can better see them. As you can see, the cables from the second tower are extremely close together and are my biggest worry right now. So now that the problem is better illuminated, does anybody have any better ideas?


P.S. the sky does not darken as quickly as it looks in the picture; i used auto-contrast and levels to see the pencil lines better and they made the sky much darker.

[2100]

Green painter's tape doesn't leave a residue.

[Oblivia Enna]

Fill in the lighter color then do the larger, darker area with the darker color? You'll be working with bigger spaces, or just make stencils, a piece of paper even?