Whenever I’m working on a collage that’s a work in progress, I like to use glue sticks. And often, when people notice that, they comment that it reminds them of when they made art back in grade school. So, as I continue my Arts & Fails series – where I experiment with different mediums and give myself permission to fail and not necessarily make something completely perfect or polished – I thought, why not experiment with a medium that’s a blast from my past?
I haven’t worked with crayons since I was probably a kid, and I liked the idea of tackling that medium again to see what happens. I decided to create another composition of a flower inspired by a visit to the New York Botanical Garden. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the process since it’s been a while, but I had a feeling it would be a bit of a struggle.
Here’s the video of the project and process:
Overall, it was definitely a tough medium to work with. But I like a challenge, and I think it would be fun to tackle another composition with crayons in the future. The biggest issue I ran into was that as I added more layers, the surface of the paper became extremely waxy, making it difficult to draw with additional colors. Sometimes I scraped some of the wax off, but overall, it was easy to overwork the surface. I ended up “cheating” a bit by using acrylic paint markers to add some finishing touches.
If you’d like to make your own crayon drawing, here are the supplies I used:
