These are plain artist's canvases, I didn't buy anything fancy - whatever was on sale at Michael's. With this one, I used three 24 packs of crayons minus the black, white, brown and gray. I arranged them by color to make sure they would fit on the canvas and lined them up like the rainbow. Then I used my glue gun to glue them all onto the canvas. Next, I covered a huge area with newspaper - very important! I borrowed my mom's heat gun (similar to a blow dryer but it gets much hotter and has a more concentrated flow of air) and very slowly started melting the crayons. I found the best method was to hold it at a 45 degree angle above the canvas to better direct the flow of the wax and eliminate the overspray. I would stop periodically and let the wax re-harden and then start again to get different patterns.
On this canvas, I used a straight razor to remove the paper from all of the crayons and assorted them in a random pattern with some spaces in between. I wanted a more abstract look with this one. I followed basically the same steps as above but had to be more careful about melting the crayons themselves too much because there was no paper to protect them. I noticed that if I held the heat gun on them for too long, they would start to warp and I wanted them to maintain the look of a crayon.
After making these two, I went to the back to school sales and stocked up on crayons because I have so many ideas of how to do different pictures and patterns with them.
this is so cool! would you be able to use a blowdryer to melt instead? thanks!
ReplyDeleteI've seen that some people have done it with a blow dryer but I've heard that with the heat gun it is a hotter and more controlled stream of air. I definitely say it's worth trying if that's what you have on hand.
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