Technical advice to improve working with oil pastels I'm very new to both landscape painting/drawing and using and mixing colors, so one of the reasons for making relatively simple paintings and drawings is my inexperience.
I got a small pack of oil pastels as a Christmas present and I started practicing and painting landscapes.
I want to ask for some advice based on one of my paintings - the one I pasted below - which was painted this morning.
I used lighter and cooler shades in the distance, and making the sides of the slope darker.
For the pines I tried to make the right sides darker and add a little bright green and yellow to the left and a &quot;weak&quot; shadow to the right to emphasize the direction of the sun rays.
The darker, slightly blended line on the foot of the mountains is a forest. I tried to make it as light as I could to not to make it seem &quot;nearer&quot;.
I just feel like the drawing looks too childish, too amateur - like it could be improved a million times. I watched landscape photos and other oil pastel paintings as well.
It seems to me more contrast would be good, and I thought about adding grass and flowers, which I'm sure I'll learn how to paint. Nevertheless, some objective, &quot;general&quot; advice would be very helpful :)
I use print paper and &quot;normal&quot; paper for writing. I cannot afford professional sketchbooks and papers at the moment.
The drawing:
The problem is not in your drawing - it's in the pastels. There are some media in which the quality of the materials you use make a huge difference, and oil pastels is one of them. (I also didn't like the childish way my pastel drawings looked, but getting a set of Faber Castel oil pastels changed it all.) So if you are into oil pastels, I'd suggest you get a set of good quality ones. They are expensive, but they are worth it.

Also, you could use cartridge paper instead of writing/printing paper. It is the general purpose paper for artwork - it is thicker than writing/printing paper and it is not expensive.