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Oil Pastel
Oil pastels come in a wide range of prices and quality, but a good one for beginners and students is the Cray-Pas either the Student or Expressionist versions are responsibly prices and are good quality. Most of the brands recommend oil pastels for children from age 4 and up. They are AP rated. According to the MSDS for oil pastels, there is no toxins.
Oil pastels have vibrant colors and have a smooth creamy texture. It glides on the paper and when layered. You can blend then with your finger or a folded paper towel. It can be messy, but it doesn't have to be. If you wipe your oil pastel before and after each time you use it with a paper towel. You can also put a clean scrap paper over areas you've already work, it will greatly reduce smudges. Clean up is easy with soap and water, making it great for children of all ages. The only real downside is that it creates little pieces like burrs or boogers that need to be carefully shakened or picked off.
When I was studying art at the University of Texas, a lot of students would use paint sticks for livestock instead of oil pastels because they were very cheap and were about 8 times the size of a regular oil pastel stick that worked great for large artworks. DBStar Markal B Paintstik Solid Paint Ambient Surface Marker Set of 11 The Whole Colors(Pack of 11) is an example at about $1.00 a stick. The drawback was the limited number of hues and they would quickly oxidate forming a film that had to be removed, but it helped to keep the sticks clean.
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My Explorations:
This cow was done with smudging to blend.
The dog was done with a combination of smudging and layering for blending.
These shoes were done with layering only. No smudging.
