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Child's Play

There are in Minneapolis several large walls that need something hung on them.  That's the good news; the bad news I have vague ideas about what I want to see on them, most will be homemade.   It is bad news because some of my ideas will take a while to create.   For instance, while at Yarnia recently I had them combine several colours in red merino wool for me.   It contains three colours of red and one coral coloured thread.  The fact the coral actually worked and pulled the other three together was quite a surprise to me.  More about that when I actually get to using this special yarn.  Don't hold your breath though, it will be months before it is done.

Recently StumbleUpon sent me this:  31 Amazing DIY Paintings for Your Blank Walls.  You know this just grabbed my attention, especially #16 - Melt Crayons.  (But check them all out, the teddy bear one is unique.)  I am drawn to colours on paintings that seem to run into one another.  In fact, I am working on a hanging that uses thread in that way, again to be revealed later.  I even went so far as to show the crayon idea to Paul, who after visiting a discount store with his son came back with a box of 64 crayons that he spent all of $0.99 on.

There is something to be said about these crayons.  First they are short, approximately 2.5 inches long so there isn't a lot of crayon to melt.  Second, they were the most unusual colours, there was no true red, yellow or orange in the box.  But then for the price, what should one expect?  Of these 64 crayons I was able to incorporate 46 in my project.

The inexpensive, Made in China crayons

When we returned home I searched to find the 10¨ by 24¨ (25.5 by 61 cm) canvass I picked up for a song sometime ago.  Due to its odd size it probably didn't sell at the regular price.  I thought it was perfect for this project.  At first I thought perhaps the 64 crayons could run across the long side of the canvass, but when I tried it more than 64 crayons were needed, like another 20-30 more.  This was OK with me because frankly I didn't want to use all the browns and blacks contained in the box anyway.  So the canvass was tilted on its short side and that seemed to work.


Crayons were glued to canvass and they are drying here held in place by the rubberband

When searching the net for help it was recommended one use colours of the rainbow in the proper order as it created satisfying combinations of colours.  It was also recommended a white or black background be used, but since this really was an experiment, I decided to blend a few colours that would hopefully highlight the melted crayon colours.

My melted rainbow of colours
Attempt one done
Once the first side was done I realized my short crayons would only melt so much colour.  The longest drips ran about 10 to 11 inches (25 to 27 cm) and on the long canvass it looked a bit silly.  So I did another set of crayons on the other side.


Done all in about 30 minutes total sans glue drying time

This project is simple, child's play really.  You need crayons (remember those shoe boxes full of broken crayons at the end of elementary school, use 'em up this way), something to hold the crayons to the canvass such as glue or double sided tape, a hair dryer and a little bit of time.

Suggestions:

  1. To get the drips as long as I want them next time I will use full length crayons.  But your project might very well be great using up leftover crayons.
  2. Remove the bands; they don't seem to add to the composition.  Additionally not all of the bands on my crayons were placed in the same way, some were askew and some were backwards.  It is what you get for $0.99.
  3. Paint the background either black or white for maximum showing off of your handiwork.  I think my colourful background detracts rather than improved the composition.  That experiment failed.
  4. Practice holding the hair dryer in different ways to see what effect it has on the flow.  I found if I pulled it away as the crayon started to melt it filled in the areas closest to the crayons themselves.  If one keeps pushing the dryer down the work the crayon continues to flow down as well.
  5. Let kids play with this project.  It is quick and easy with little to no mess involved.  And they can create whatever they want with it.  Rainbow colours are fine, but next time I will probably try other colour combinations.

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