Friday, July 29, 2011

MORE Melted Crayon Craziness!


Well, we did it again! I knew I wanted to make more of these canvases and I wanted to try a couple of other techniques to see what else would work! Brooke and I spent a little time yesterday sorting out the colors from 4 boxes of crayons. FYI- for my 11"x14" canvas 40 crayons fit perfectly. So, I chose 10 different colors and used 4 of each one. (In case you missed my first post on how to do this, you can find it here).

This shows you how I laid them out. I would put one down of each color in 4 different areas, then put the next color down beside it..

and so on, until I had 4 like groups of 10 different crayons.

As I said in my original post, I'm in Texas and hell has nothing on the heat we are experiencing. SURELY I could use the sun to melt these puppies. 

My other idea was to put them in the car to melt. Again, SO stinking hot, surely this would work.

However, we have SO many trees that we do not get steady sun in any one area of our yard (front or back) for more than about an hour or so. I had to move this canvas down after about an hour, but no melting had occurred yet.

This was the car canvas, and although it looked like it was starting to sweat/melt, again no drips (after about an hour).

Okay, so no steady sun in the yard or car (I wasn't going to keep moving the canvas from place to place and the car from driveway to street, and all around) = a no go for melting the crayons. So, I put them on the counter and came back to them this afternoon. I was talking to my mom on the phone and she suggested trying them in the oven... brilliant! So, I did. And it worked. Beautifully!

Here was my first set up. Since I'm "with child" those beer mugs sure aren't getting any use (but boy howdy, I would KILL for an ice cold brew!!). I put some foil down on a cookie sheet, propped my canvas up on the mugs, and placed the whole set-up in the oven.

I set mine to 250 (wish I knew how to do the little degree symbol thingy!).
 

I took a peek after about 1 1/2 minutes and WHA?!?! Drippy?! Yay!

 But, the angle they were at was making the tops of the crayons melt over the wrappers and I thought that looked messy. So.. my anal retentive self took them out of the oven (while Brooke asked, "What's wrong, Mama? Why are you taking them out already?"). I told her I was fixing them and so I did.

Like so. I put one in front of the other to make the angle more steep.

Then I put them back in to get their melt on.


Definitely put down some foil b/c they will likely melt off of the canvas a bit.

This is the finished product for Brooke's canvas. DONE in 5 minutes!! :)

Here is Benjamin's (also after just 5 minutes!)!

These have a different look than the first one I did, since the colors dripped straight down and didn't bleed or blend in with the colors beside them.

Love these colors too!

I love how they turned out and how I did the different color groups. 

21 comments:

  1. Love! That was my first thought, to do all pinks/reds so it could be girly. You are so smart :)

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  2. We have been trying this at home too. It seemed like such a fun project that everyone could do. We tried outside first, in the blazing sun with no luck. Then I remembered my mom bought me an embossing gun a while back that has been sitting in the back of my closet. So I got it out and withing a few minutes it started working! It turned out exactly like the picture. Definitely something we'll do again!

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  3. This is a GREAT idea! My girls will love it. I'm going to pin it on Pinterest, too!

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  4. I wonder if you could use a heat gun???

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  5. This is so CUTE!!! I can't wait to do this with my Grandkids!

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  6. I love this! I also thought about using my embossing gun, thinking it may give you more " direction" with the flow of the melt? Perhaps even a different work of art altogether? They could go side by side ( Crayola Canvas and New Crayola Work Of Art)! Thanks for this!

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  7. Alt key while typing 167 will give you the º symbol!
    Great tutorial, can't wait to try it. I think it will look awesome in my soon-to-be nursery!
    Thanks!
    Dominique

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  8. I did this in the sun first and it worked really well, in fact it probably got a little too hot. Then I tried it in the oven but my canvas board started to melt and fall. Thanks for the ideas.

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  9. If You color directly onto your canvas very heavily first and then glue down your crayons you will get the blend effect. Just color in the space in between each crayon and you won't get so much of a line design. They look great either way though. Great job Mom :)

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  10. Nice! When I did mine it took about 3 hours for the heat to get them melting.
    I like the color combinations.


    http://debzdoodles.blogspot.com/search/label/Art%20project

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  11. Love, love, love it!

    Miranda
    www.justdrinkacoke.com

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  12. I also saw this etsy seller recently and wanted to try making my own crayon canvases... thanks for working through some of the details for me!

    As far as making a degree symbol (or many other symbols), look on your system for the "Character Map". Open it, find the symbol you want, choose "Select" then "Copy". Now the symbol(s) you selected are in your Copy and Paste memory... paste away into the area you are working on. ENJOY playing! :D

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  13. º°
    Alt 0176 is smaller and higher up. Just whatever you like.
    I love the drippy art. :)

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  14. I've tried it now and certainly not as easy as it looks, for a start I used a small canvas, think you need the large size to give it room to run - I used a heat gun on the first which may have been to powerful, on the second try my hair dryer was too breezy and it splattered rather than dripped, so if I have another go I will try the oven - and has anyone noticed how fast the red melted compared to other colours? - very interesting project

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  15. Great job - I love your nice straight lines! I tried this today and used your idea to prop up the canvas on a lined baking sheet. I wrote about it in my blog and referenced your post. Thanks for the tip!

    www.jubalife.com

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  16. It would be a lot easier if you just use a blow dryer and then the colors will run together more.:)

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  17. @Anonymous. Yes, this is was my second post about melty crayon art. The first time I used the hair dryer. This is a different look, not everyone may want the colors to all run together and/or splatter like you get with the hair dryer. You can also use a heat gun.

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  18. How did you end up hanging it up on the wall? Frame/no frame?

    I'm also wondering how fragile it is after the project is done... does it chip off or flake off easy? I'm thinking of using this technique on a wooden frame for a mirror.

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  19. I wonder if blow drying the backside would generate enough heat and avoid the splattering - or have two blow dryers going on the back. Or maybe a heating pad on the backside, I have GOT to try this craft! :)

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