1. Tape your paper

-     Tear out a sheet from the A4 Oil Pastel Pad

-    Lightly de-tack your tape and secure the edges to your drawing board or surface

2. Outline drawing

-    Lightly draw a crescent moon at the top

-    Add a few curved lines for the ground

-    Sketch one or two cacti shapes

3. Masking tape oil pastels

-    Cut pieces of tape for the moon, ground, and cacti

-    Press the tape over each section

-    Use a hobby knife to gently score around each shape (just enough to cut the tape)

-    Carefully peel away the outer tape, leaving the moon, cacti, and ground masked

4. Oil pastel sky

-    Start with Violet at the top of the page

-    Blend in Fuchsia, Pink, Cadmium Yellow, and finish with Lemon Yellow near the ground

-    Use your fingers to blend where the colours meet

-    Blend softly and reapply colour as needed

5. Reveal your shapes

-    Slowly peel off the tape covering the moon, cacti, and ground

-    Colour the ground and cacti with Black

-    Use a blending stump to sharpen edges and clean up the outlines

-    Sharpen your pastel on scrap paper if needed

6. Final details

-    Add a distant hill in Yellow Ochre if you’d like to create more depth

-    Use a hobby knife to scratch small star shapes into the sky (sgraffito technique)

Enjoy your bold and colourful pastel desert! This is a fab way to experiment with gradients, silhouettes, and blending. Display your work proudly—or snap a pic to share with friends (and us!).