My first name is Emmanuel (in my profile page)Classic (can't remember if we know your first name) - thanks for commenting. I don't like the tomato highlights, either. And that is an important part of the painting, so I must practice that more. I used a permanent masking medium, and inadvertently covered my pencil lines. When trying to lift the lines, I caused a wee bit of damage to the cheap paper so I was not able to get a more natural looking highlight.
I think the cheap paper is your main culprit. As a beginner with oil pastels I only bought cheap paper, like kid's construction paper - why bother with better paper for my experiments? But I found out quickly that it just worked against me, because the medium didn't react well - and it was so much more rewarding on better paper. Not the best, maybe, but not the cheapest.he damage to the paper was caused by using cheap cellulose paper, something which I will not buy again. I thought it would get me to loosen up and not overwork, but so far, that has not transpired.