Oil-Rubbed Sea Turtles

I saw this cool technique for using baby oil to blend oil pastels at Life With Moore Babies. I decided to try it with sea turtles. I did it first because I really had no idea how it would work. First I colored a turtle using oil pastels.

I purposely colored lightly on the shell. That's where I wanted the blending to take place. So I went over the shell with a Q-tip dipped in baby oil. First I did the inside of the "circles" then I did the green part.

I really like how it softened the look of the shell.

So I let the kids have a go at it. First the coloring,

and then the oil.

The blending concept was lost on most of them, but they sure loved "painting" with the oil!

I think I will try this technique again using a more abstract approach. And I have to teach them not to press down so hard when they color with the pastels. Blending light scribbles worked the best.

One book I love to read when I teach about sea turtles is Turtle Tide: The Ways of Sea Turtles by Stephen R. Swinburne.

It's definitely not for kids who can't handle books about the death of animals, but I just love it. It's about a sea turtle that lays 100 eggs on the beach, but most of the babies die before making it to the sea. I can't read it to my class without tearing up. Every single time. "And what had been one hundred was now sixty-four."

Fun Fact: The temperature of the sand in which the sea turtle lays her eggs determines the sex of the babies. The warmer the sand, the more females will be born.