Oil Pastel Tutorial Archives - The Crafty Classroom

Van Gogh Art Project for Kids

September 17, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

We’re diving into our Artist studies this year, starting with Van Gogh. A couple of years ago we did this Starry Night Art Project, and this year we’re starting off with The Potato Eaters.

This is a fantastic painting to study for children of all ages, and I highly recommend looking into this book series by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each artists most famous paintings are discussed in great detail and these books would make a fantastic addition to your homeschool library.

We used our Oil Pastels for this project, which worked really well for blending, and overlapping color. We even used our fingernails in some parts to scratch away color.

All of our Master Artist projects come with a printable artist card you can use for displaying children’s artwork.

Click Here for the Full Art Project Tutorial.

Tiger Eyes Oil Pastel Tutorial

July 9, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick 3 Comments

We are getting tons of use from our Crayola Oil Pastels.
I’ve purchased other pastel kits in the past, but I love the amount of crayon you get with this set. They are so much thicker and have lasted us much longer.

Plus they are nice for little hands.

Amazon currently has them for $3.88 and free shipping as an add on for Prime
I highly recommend them!
They are wonderful quality, and produce stunning results:

I know right?!

This is our latest project, Tiger Eyes!

I’ve posted the two part photo tutorial

Drawing your Tiger Eyes
Using Oil Pastel on Tiger Eyes

I’m guessing that this would be perfect for 6th and 7th graders,
or very enthusiastic elementary students.

The tiger is the national animal of India, and would also tie ie with our previous oil pastel tutorial of India’s national bird, the peacock.

Can you guess what country we’ll be studying this coming year?

Peacock Oil Pastel Tutorial

July 8, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

I have a dear sweet little girl who thinks she can’t draw. We sit at the table and I instruct her, drawing a line on my paper, then she draws a line on her paper.

It’s not perfect. I can’t do it. It doesn’t look like yours SEE…

And I tell her, Sweet Girl, The world isn’t perfect. There are bumps and squiggles and dents and dings, but that is what we want to see. We want to see lopsidedness, and misshapen, off-center and unsymmetrical

Our drawing can reflect reality rather then perfection.

So she kept pushing herself, I instructed and she drew her best.
There were moments of frusteration, but as her drawing came together she began to see how beautiful ~~her drawing~~ she really was!

Confidence was built this week.

She is begging for another picuture, a tiger she says would be amazing with it’s red and orange……or a sheep with it’s white fluffy body….

And I’m thinking of all the goals we met over the school year, our Summer months spending time together, just might be more fruitful.

If you want to try out this little peacock,
I’ve posted the full tutorial on our website.

There is even a printable peacock for a template guide,
or for your TOT’s to color in while you instruct your older kiddos.

I actually printed the peacock for my oldest boy, who struggles with motor control and it would have made the lesson excruciatingly painful for him. He was full of joy when coloring it in with pastels and it was still a mini lesson for him :)