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Our first attempt at oil pastels brought nothing, yes, they were pretty indifferent about them. How could this be with their awesome mixing ability; I mean really, my oldest mixes paint until it is black every single time. How could she not enjoy these?
Then I saw the idea to add baby oil to the mix over at Art with Mr. E. No real instructions, just more of an experimental art idea.
Conduct Your Own Oil Pastel Experiment with theseThings
- oil pastels
- baby oil
- Q-tips
- watercolor paper or similar heavy weight paper
Mix up Your Oil Pastel Colors by adding Baby Oil
I have to say when the girls saw me getting out the oil pastels again I might have seen some eye rolls. Seriously, how do 5-year-olds know to roll their eyes; I think they must be born with it.
I handed them some watercolor paper (the thicker the better since you are adding liquid) and had them draw with the pastels.
Luckily they humored me, and we got to move on to the fun, experimental part. I handed them Q-tips and a little dish of baby oil with instructions to go over their lines.
The places they painted with baby oil looked smoother and the colors would blend together much easier.
The baby oil was like a little miracle on a Q-tip to them. It turned the whole art process around and they enjoyed it; not a single eye roll. Who knew a little liquid could do that!
Surprisingly, They didn't particularly care about blending multiple colors, so I made a couple little samples using 2 primary colors and blended them with baby oil. This should give you a nice idea of the effect the baby oil produces.
Since our initial baby oil and oil pastel experiment, the girls have requested to do it again, so I would say that was definitely a successful art activity!
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