I copied a YouTuber's Oil Pastel technique

Today I woke up well rested and not grumpy, and the sun was shining at last!

It's St. Patrick's day, and an excuse to wear green!
I piled up some of my greenest jewelry that I've made (or assembled):

Although I don't know where I will wear it.
It's not time to go to the grocery store, and I only work a few hours this afternoon...

I got my new work schedule and it's not awful. I seem to have every other day off.

We still don't have any official orders to cancel Masses, but other areas like LA have.
A lot of people are calling in to postpone their weddings and things.


This YouTube video came up on my recommended list.
It's a girl making an oil pastel painting of raindrops.
It looked like so much fun, I had to try it!

Here is the link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qCp2smmxs8
Her name is Goldson and she makes some amazing, realistic pictures in oil pastel.

I pretty much copied what she did exactly.

Somehow I've accumulated oil pastels, even though I don't really like them.
They tend to be messy and smear the pages of the journal.

Some of these came from cheap "drawing kits" and others I bought on purpose.

The artist masked off her paper with some pretty paper tape.
I also have a lot of pretty paper tape, which I don't use enough.

I really liked the way this looked already!
In the future I'll definitely use more paper tape in my journal.

I used a gray and a purple for the sky. It didn't seem like the right color.
Also this brand was very waxy and not filled with color.

Next I filled in the black areas of the skyline and the orange lights.
The black color worked better.

It makes a lot of crumbs, though.

The artist wore gloves to smear the pastels with her finger.
I tried it with some nitrile gloves I have laying around.

This was very awkward, and I gave up right away.
The artist also used a stump, which is also used for blending charcoal and pastels.
(I also have a bunch of those somewhere)

I thought the stump was a better tool  for blending.

Next was drawing the raindrops.
I did not have any reference of what a raindrop should look like!
I just copied what I thought the artist did. I know they kind of reflect upside-down.

She first drew them with a black Prismacolor pencil.
I found a black Prismacolor in this container of pencil stubs:

She also added highlights with a white gel pen and a white Posca paint marker.

I expected the gel pain to get gunked up with the oil pastel, but it actually worked.

Here is how it turned out in the end:

I only ripped the paper a little when I pulled off the masking tape...
I'm not proud of copying the artist's work, but I was happy to have made something out of my usual routine.