Since I didn’t have the best experience using these Paul Rubens oil pastels on cardboard, I thought I’d give these pastels the benefit of the doubt, and use a different substrate. 

This time I used toned 65 lb drawing paper. I sat at my drawing table in the afternoon, instead of drawing at night, like I normally do. I wanted to see these oil pastels in action in the daylight, and take photos. 

I wasn’t applying pressure or using a heavy hand. This is what happened…

Dry, yet slick spots everywhere. 

The colors I grabbed first were the colors I was using on the cardboard because I wanted to see if they would react the same way on drawing paper. The answer is yes. The pastels had the same weird reaction on paper as on cardboard. It was a mess.  

These pastels were dropping huge chunks all over the paper. Again, wanting to be fair, I thought…no big deal. I’ll just use my tortillon and smooth this out a bit. 

Unfortunately, I ran into the same exact issue with the tortillon that I had when using cardboard. Those crumbly blobs didn’t just smooth out and blend in, like other oil pastels do. I ended up having to pick the crumbs off the paper..what fun. 😠 

I didn’t know it was possible for an oil pastel to be dry, yet slick, slippery, and gooey at the same time, but that’s what I found to be true with these pastels. 

Her shirt was a nightmare, and took forever to blend out, and I was only using one shade of blue. I had given up trying to layer or blend colors together with these pastels. I was simply trying to get the pastel to cover the paper, which I can normally do quickly without even thinking about it. Not this time – not with these oil pastels.

Again I experienced the dry, sticky, gooey, slick slimy feel under my tortillon, and had to constantly wipe huge blue blobs off my tortillon. Like the other colors, the blue pastel did one of two things – stuck to the paper hard and couldn’t be blended. Or, it wouldn’t stay on the paper at all. I was more than exasperated at this point. 

I had planned on drawing three of these portraits, but I only made it through one. It was a long frustrating experience. I wanted to like these oil pastels. In fact, I’ve said here on my blog that I thought this brand would end up being my favorite, but the truth is I don’t like them – at all. It was almost like trying to draw with roasted marshmallows. The outside layer of a marshmallow is usually dry, and the inside a gooey, sticky mess. 

I did the best I could with what I had to work with, and then I gave up. I had to face it – as much as I wanted to like these Paul Rubens oil pastels, they aren’t going to work for me. Why waste my afternoon getting more frustrated when I could just choose a better brand (like Arrtx), and get the results I was looking for? 

The next morning I cleaned the pastels up, listed the set on eBay, and it’s been sold. I never have to work with them again. Thank goodness!

Honestly, the best thing about these oil pastels was the box. I will give these oil pastels a quarter of a star out of five because of the packaging. If you like pretty boxes, and haven’t seen the unboxing blog post of these Paul Rubens oil pastels, it is here. You can also read about my experience using these pastels on cardboard here. 

If you want to see another artist review these Paul Rubens oil pastels, click here. I watched this video when it came out 6 months ago. I watched it again today, after writing my blog post. I wanted to get my own thoughts down before rewatching it, and it seems BlackBean had some of the same problems with them as I did. Now, I wish I had listened to him, and not wasted my time or money. Live & learn. 

Side note: my husband pointed out to me that I’ve been spelling Rubens wrong (duh), so hopefully I’ve corrected that everywhere now. It’s good to be married to a copyeditor some days. Thank you, honey, for always noticing my flaws. hahaha! 

I hope you have a lovely creative weekend. If you like this blog post, please share it using the buttons below.

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See my artwork in a new movie – The Whale starring Brendan Fraser, which will be released December 9th, 2022. 

My affordably priced artwork can be purchased here on my site, and in my eBay store. Plus, new items are available in my Etsy shop. 

I’m also accepting orders for custom paintings, and drawings. Please keep in mind that it will take me several days, possibly weeks to complete the artwork. I can’t guarantee a Christmas delivery at this point. 

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