Melted Crayon art has been going around for a little bit now, but this was the first time I had seen this form of it. Rather than gluing/taping the crayons to the top of the canvas and having the meltings run down, this one uses an iron and crayon shavings. Cool, huh?! I really want to try this out now! Well Lindsay tried it out and it's harder than it looks to get it just right.
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| from: http://www.momtastic.com/home-and-living/home/168730-its-elementary-avant-garde-art-made-with-crayons |
Lindsay found the supplies she needed at the local Wally World and eagerly started on her adventure only to run into a few problems. First, the crayons didn't want to come out of their wrappings. She cut them off with an exacto knife and then proceeded to peel them off in tiny strips. Next, she says it quite literally took her hours to grate up the crayons into little shavings as the crayons just wanted to stick in the holes of the grater. But finally she had the crayons grated and decided to get to work on her first piece of crayon art.
Pinstrosity #1
Lindsay says, "I decided to make a little meadow-y scene for the first one. I had a Monet-type picture imagined. I did not anticipate how much my colors would run together. There's a blob of green in the sky where the sun and the sky mixed. It was a mess."
Pinstrosity #2
Lindsay "decided to just stick to vertical lines for the second one. By the time one part of the picture would melt on the low setting, the part that I had just finished would be solid again. It's hard to see in the picture, but there are giant blobs of hardened crayon because I used way too many shavings."
Pinstrosity #3
"For the third one, I was down to the ugly colors of the crayon box. I usually enjoy red and brown together, but this red was just so red. It ended up looking like a bloody diarrhea disaster. However, I sprinkled VERY fine lines of crayons on this one because I have learned that a little does go a long way when it gets melty. So, if the colors had been better, my last attempt wouldn't have been that bad"
How to Fix This
Lindsay says...
- Use the bigger holes of the cheese grater to kind of shave off little chunks of crayon instead of trying to use the small holes to actually grate them into fine shavings.
- Less is more when it comes to putting the shavings on the canvas. The melted crayon spreads out a lot more than you think it would.
- Unless you want a giant, melted mixture of all of your colors, DO NOT swirl your iron around or move it too much on the canvas. I just held it in one place until that section melted and then moved on to the next section.
- Next time I might see if parchment paper or something else would work without getting melted crayon all over my iron
If you put the crayons in water, most of the paper will just slip right off the crayon.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that trick. Good to know!
DeleteMy Mom and I did this all the time when I was little! I can't wait to try this with my daughter!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a lot of fun, I want to try it out.
DeleteI would buy a cheap pencil sharpener - you know a hand one - and "grate" the crayon that way. It probably wouldn't be any faster, but a lot easier. At least in my head. Having never tried it may just be another pinstrosity post.:)
ReplyDeleteA pencil sharpener...that sounds genius!
DeleteA pencil sharpener is what I was picturing as well. And yeah, I'm pretty sure parchment paper would work. I use it for crafting all the time, and not even GLUE sticks to that stuff!
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was a food processor.
ReplyDeleteI did this all the time as a kid. We used to use scissors to scrap crayon shavings off. It worked really well. Then in the fall (since I live in New England) we collected leaves. We used to take wax paper and stick the leaves in between them with the crayon shavings and then ironed over them and ended up with beautiful art. Fond memories from my childhood.
ReplyDeleteYep, I remember the wax paper with leaves and the crayon art as a kid in the 70's, and Mom ALWAYS put a flattened brown paper bag between her iron and any crafty material to protect the iron. Kraft paper or parchment would, of course, work as well.
DeleteWe did this as kids. Use a crayon sharpener, like on the back of the big box of Crayola's, they also crayon sharpeners seperately, cover the shavings with wax paper, then brown bag or newspaper before ironing.
DeleteThe last one reminds me of bacon (but thank you for the lovely "bloody diarrhea disaster" image, lol!) :)
ReplyDeleteI did this in high school for my final art project. Use a muffin pan to hold your colors and put it on a flat grill. Just break up the crayons and melt them. Use actual canvas, and don't set it up right, lay it on a table to prevent running. I made a fish, and the scales looked decent. You just paint it like you would with acrylic paint.
ReplyDeleteYou're supposed to put waxed paper over it before you iron it, not iron directly onto the canvas... that would be part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteWe did this with sharpener shavings, made a design of a tree with different hues of blues for a background on a framed canvas. We even spelled out the words "once there was..." instead of an iron we used a hair dryer but heated it from underneath to gain better control and to not blow crayon everywhere. They tend to chip after a while so some kind of sealant is needed. Turned out lovely for my sons room.
ReplyDeleteI did this a few years ago using a tiny craft iron and put the crayon on the iron to melt (no shavings) onto the canvas. Then used the iron to smoosh it around some more. The result was pretty nice.
ReplyDelete