Tutorial: Melted Crayon Art

Last week I posted my crayon art tutorial on Instructables, a huge website with tons of how-tos for all kinds of projects. I'm excited to say that it made the front page! Woooo!

I wanted to post the pictures here too in case anyone lands on my blog. So here's my take two on a melted crayon art tutorial:

Melted Crayon Art

Materials:

a blank canvas

crayons, new or old (I needed about 60-70 for my 16" x 20" canvas)

a utility or exacto knife (optional, for peeling the crayons)

hot glue gun

heat tool or a hair dryer with a diffuser or low blower setting

First cover your work surface in newspaper. 

Then decide what kind of color spectrum you are going to do. Remember you don't have to do just a rainbow. You could do only cool colors, only warm colors, a random assortment, big stripes, etc.

Take the wrappers off all the crayons you're going to use. A quick and easy way to do this is to slit each wrapper with a utility knife. It will then just peel right off.

Next lay out your crayons along the top edge of your canvas until you like how the sequence of colors looks.

Then hot glue each one down right next to one another with the tops flush to the top of the canvas.

Once all your crayons are glued down, prop your canvas up at a gentle angle. I used a glass of water. Make sure the bottom edge is over your newspaper.

Turn on your heat tool or hair dryer. If you're using a hair dryer, you'll need to put it on a low blower setting or use a diffuser, otherwise it will spatter the wax everywhere.

Focus the heat on the crayons. They will quickly turn sweaty, then start dripping down the canvas.

When you like the way it looks, let it cool a few minutes then hang it up!