A Greeting, A Tag, And An Ornament

Beautifully Painted with Niji Metallic Oil Pastels and odorless mineral spirits.

Loving  all the Niji Oil pastels, especially the metallic set.  Oil pastels are highly pigmented sticks that binders have been added to give the pigments a way to be applied to surfaces.  This project is perfect as a greeting card, plus a tag for a present, and then hang it on your tree!  Every year, you will remember the person who gave you a gift, plus this is a gift itself!!!

You have heard of chefs “deconstructing” a recipe, I will be deconstructing the Niji Oil Pastels so I can paint with them.  Using odorless mineral spirits breaks down the binders, and thus you can paint with the oil pastels!!!

Niji/Yasutomo Supplies:

Niji Metallic Oil Pastel Set

Gel Xtreme Pens

Other Supplies:

Wood Tag

Old watercolor brushes

Odorless Mineral Spirits

Glitter Pen

Plastic scrap sheet

Gold Ribbon

It is sooo fun to use a wood tag!  Some might want to seal the tag, but I LOVE the texture, and painting to bring out the texture is very yummy!!

Start by coloring heavily onto the scrap piece of plastic.  The plastic is your palette.

Add odorless mineral spirits to a container, and dip brush in.  Tap brush on a rag to remove excess mineral spirits if necessary.  You want the brush wet but not dripping.  The idea is to break down the binders but not so much unless you want to mute the color.

Paint the tag, repeating the steps of breaking down the oil pastel with odorless mineral spirits and painting on tag.

Playing with shading is fun!  I added another coat of fushia color on the bottom of the holly berries to add shadow, and then used a glitter pen for the highlights.

The metallic oil pastel adds a shimmery, festive look to the tag!

Gel Xtreme Pens are perfect to bring out the bark and add to the metallic oil pastel shimmer.  In fact, the Gel Xtremes would be great on a regular manila or chipboard tag to achieve a similar look.

Here is another look, painting on a manila tag.

Blend and mix colors as you paint the tag.

Stamp over the painted oil pastels to create a scene, sentiment, or whatever you want.  Use a permanent ink.  I have found that the new Colorbox Surfacez Inks work fabulous!

Play, experiment, and design all sorts of Christmas art treats to give out.  Something handmade comes from the heart and will never be forgotten!!

Cre8tivelea Yours – Lea