Ask Jacksons: Do oil pastels melt in extreme heat, either as sticks or on a painting?

Oil pastels are heat sensitive; they become softer in response to the heat of your hands and harder after they have been kept in the fridge. However, it would take very extreme heat for oil pastel sticks to melt into a puddle - for example, it wouldn’t be advisable to keep oil pastels in a car on a hot day, but no artist medium should be exposed to those kinds of temperatures. In an oil pastel painting or drawing, an increase in temperature could make the oil pastel softer and more sensitive to smudging. No matter what the temperature is, care should be taken to avoid the surface being disturbed because oil pastels never fully dry anyway. 

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