Sketching with Oil Pastels

I'm trying to make friends with my oil pastels, because they seem like the kind crayons that I would like. The colors, the blending, the relevance to paint colors. Seems like a good way to make sketches for things I want to paint properly later on.

The problem is... I always hate new media. Almost always. I never hated metal or glass. But even new pencils are problematic for me at first.

Although this first picture looks kind of sloppy and disjoint, it has an alibi: The left side was drawn with my left hand, the right side with my right. I wanted to give both sides of my brain a little workout. There are only a few places where the two sides diverged significantly, and most of the size/shape/angle differences I chalk up to the fact that I do have a dominant hand.

This is just more goofing with the oil pastels. I suspect this would look a lot better in paint. And I might try it sometime. Without all the white around the edges, though. It's pleasingly amorphous and twine-y.