Painting with Crayons

Over the years I've slowly gathered up restaurant crayons. It seems like a small thing, but I hated seeing perfectly good crayons headed for the trash after a short use on a Red Lobster children's menu. So as the rest of the family gathered their things I walk around the table and gather the barely used crayons.

Once home they would usually spend time in my closet next to my billfold, but eventually they would end up with all of the crayons I had rescued from boxes and restaurants and various children. I always thought that one day I would sort them in this nice "Lazy Susan" we got from Cheryl's Granny Kay. (I doubt that will ever really happen. It kind of takes the fun out of searching for just the right crayon.)

A fun thing to do with used broken crayons is to make BIG multi-colored crayons out of them. You take the paper off of them, break them up where they will fit in a muffin tin, heat up the oven (not too hot) and then let them melt. Stir the melted was a little after they melt or you'll end up with clear wax on the top and color on the bottom. After they cool (duh) pop them out and you have cool discs of color for your kiddos. They are great for making rubbings. (You know - where you lay a piece of paper on a rough surface and then rub the crayon over it....)

About a year ago I saw something new to try with crayons. Crayola made some crayons to use in making melted crayon paintings. I bought some canvas boards and my daughter, Christy, and I tried to paint with a hair dryer, using it to melt the crayons. It sort of worked, but we weren't happy with the process. The hair dryer melted the wax, but it blew so hard there was little you could do to control where the wax went.

A couple of months ago I saw an acrylic painting that inspired me to try a new way to paint with crayons. I new that a hair dryer blew too hard and made the melted wax spray across the canvas, so I bought an embossing heater. A heat gun would have been good. I would show you a picture of it, but the only one they had at Hobby Lobby was pink and I don't want you to know that I have a pink embosser. :-)

OK. This has been way too long of an introduction. Here's what I want to show you. How you can make your own really cool fall colored tree using melted crayons...

First, I painted the sky, the ground and the trunk of a tree using acrylic paints.

I then took a lot of different red crayons from different restaurants and boxes and tested melting them to see what shade of red they made when melted.

Then I held a darker red crayon in my hand and heated it up with the embosser and I let the wax drip onto the canvas board.

I added layers of different shades of red, melted away parts where I thought it was too full and ended up with this.

Here's a close up. I like the way the wax would splatter when I held the crayons further away.

 The reds seemed a little too much and I needed some highlights, so I added a little orange to it.

Now my red tree is in a silent auction for missions. The money raised is helping some of our High School students go to Buenos Aires, Argentina on a mission trip at the end of June into July.

Here it is on the auction table. It is 16x20, acrylic and wax on canvas board. It has a nice wooden frame that really sets it off don't you think?

You can bid on this painting by calling Hilldale's Family Life Center. As of this writing today, the current bid is $150. The auction ends May 9.

Painting with Hannah and Benjamin

We had Christmas - meaning opening presents and staying the night and eating Christmas yummy food - with Christy and Daniel and Hannah and Benjamin the Friday night before Christmas.
Saturday we painted.

Forest Fire!

The second piece of art in my Sycamore Art series is titled "Forest Fire!" (If you missed the first painting, click here Sycamore Art ) That link will also show the sycamore trees.


I started with an old piece of plywood that I had used in making some stained-glass pieces. I chose this piece of wood partly for the great texture - which shows beautifully through the layers of paint - but also because I wanted my Sycamore Art series to be environmentally friendly by not only using the bark, but by recycling an old piece of wood and making something beautiful out of it.
I gessoed the board - I have no idea if that's how you spell that - and then painted it brown before painting layers of reds and oranges with a touch of yellow here and there.

I then picked out some pieces of sycamore bark that looked either like flames or like they had been burned into interesting shapes and mounted them on the painting. I didn't do anything to the bark except mount it and protect it with a coat of varnish. These are the shapes I found them in.

It was very difficult to photograph this work because it has such a shiny finish. No matter what angle or amount of light I used I would get a really bad glare either at the top or across the middle. A side angle seemed to show the color well without getting a glare.

I took a couple of pictures outside hoping the bright light - yet in the shade - would allow me to photograph it without the glare. I also took a picture of it under the tree that the bark came from.
You can see this new painting in my Etsy shop
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15545663

This painting will definitely be a topic of conversation no matter where you hang it.

My Biggest Canvasses

White walls.
I would show you a picture of a white wall, but I don't have one!
When there is so much color and beauty in the world it's a shame that most walls are white or beige. A friend of mine says, "my walls aren't beige, they're doe skin". : ) I don't have the heart to tell her that "doe skin" is a fancy name for boring beige.
Our living room/sun room is a gorgeous green, the master bedroom is colonial blue with a gold stenciled decorative design, the dining room is squash with raised plaster stencil painted gold!, the kitchen is purple, the guest bedroom is blue with varnish stripes and the grandbabies' room is bright yellow! (You can see their room on an earlier post.) I hope these pictures will inspire all of you out there to pull out your paint brushes and work on your biggest canvasses.

Oh! And don't forget the ceiling! Our sun room is 25' x 25'. It took several days to paint the ceiling. People think it is wallpaper when they first see it. The deep purple stripe really sets it off.
Lyndel
http://www.bearhollowcreations.etsy.com/
Of course even decorated walls need art work. check out the Visual Arts Team Members for great artwork for your BEIGE walls. : ) http://vastgallery.blogspot.com/