Why did I choose oil pastel for painting?

I used to draw a lot in my teenage years, nothing really serious, quick reproducing from the comics Spawn and from the manga Slam Dunk. I didn’t want to be an artist, I was more into playing basketball and learning how to code because I wanted to be a programmer.

I’m a front-end web developer, I made this whole website, design, blog, ecommerce platform by myself, it is something I like to do : create from scratch. And above all I like to have control on everything I do, this is the kind of person I am.

I’m a photographer, I take pictures using film roll because I hate the extreme definition of digital photography, it looks way too unreal to me. Too much details on pictures, on TV. Using film is fun, I could see blood through the skins of people, it reminds me my youth using disposable cameras, I was confident with the film is not dead motto, as the prices of film rolls increased so badly, I couldn’t keep up. I needed to find another medium I could dive into.

I’m a painter, I’m a happy father of two daughters and it’s not a reason to stop having ambition and giving up on dreams. Never. But how can I paint without using dangerous materials for my babies health?

I was looking for :

• a non-toxic medium
• a medium easy to use as a extension of my hand
• a medium with bright and vivid colors
• a medium which can be used on any surfaces
• a medium I could feel the texture, the movement
• a medium I don’t need to use extra materials to start

Oil pastel covered all of my requirements, I started with the Faber-Castell and I was really disconcerted by the hardness of the pastels, I wouldn’t recommend this brand to begin with. For beginners if you really want to try out pastels, it’s better to try Crayola Oil pastels. I don’t think one artist must stick to one brand, some pastels are good for backgrounds and big shapes, some are good for details, I won’t tell which is better to use for what purpose. It’s part of an artist journey to find what works best for a piece.

When I’m looking for informations, techniques about pastels, it’s 90% of the time about soft pastel, is there something bad about oil pastels? I don’t care, this is the one I like.

P.S : yes it’s oil pastel painting, that’s the post.