Melted Crayons Art (inspired by Pinterest)

Pinterest is an extremely inspirational website. Any registered users can share creative pictures and DIYS that they come across the web or that they created by themselves. I have been using it for a little more than 3 weeks now and after having scoured the entire DIY section of Pinterest, I am extremely inspired to try out some of the arts and crafts shared by other people.

I was so inspired to try the melting crayon art, that I immediately bought a 10 by 14 inch canvas with a 24-crayon pack from Crayola. I wanted to start small, and lo and behold it looked amazing! Not only that, it was so easier to do than I thought!

First you need buy 3 basic items:

A stretch canvas

A pack of crayons

Glue

You can buy all of those at ArtFriend. Buona Vista MRT station has a store, on top of the usual Takashimaya ( above Kinokuniya Bookstore ) and Bras Basah. The three items costs less than SGD15.

You need to choose a canvas that is appropriate for the pack of crayons that you buy. You don’t want to buy too big a canvas if you use a small pack of crayons, nor too small, so that all the crayons can’t fit onto the canvas.

I bought the crayons from crayola, mainly because it is the most popular brand and that the wrappings of the crayons can be part of the art as well. I bought a 24-crayon pack to start small, since this is the first time I’m doing it.

I used UHU glue. I wasn’t sure which glue to use, so I thought using the well known UHU glue will do the job. It did the job well enough. I don’t have a glue gun anyway. As a note, use a glue that is heat resistant and applicable to all surfaces, mainly paper to cloth or canvas material. You don’t want the crayons to come out from the canvas when you heat the crayons with a hair-dryer.

Arrange the crayons as you see fit, according to colours of the rainbow. Glue the bottom of the crayons that would be touching the canvas and the sides, so that it would stick to both onto the canvas and the adjacent crayons on the canvas. Make sure you pack those crayons tightly if you want a smooth beautiful rainbow gradient.

Next thing is to make sure that you cover the floor with newspapers. Depending on the hair-dryer used, it can get pretty messy, so expand the area using more newspapers.

Now tilt the canvas at a slight angle. The angle is up to you. If you want a straight streak running down the canvas as the crayons melt, tilt it higher. If you want a smooth coat, tilt it lower. If you tilt it lower, you must make sure the melted crayons at the bottom continues to travel down by blowing it and guiding the streak, if not the spread is too uneven.

Now use a hair dryer at high heat setting, but low fan speed setting. You don’t want the melted crayon to run all over the place if you blast the hair dryer on the crayons as it melts.

I prefer to heat one section at the time, slowly making my way from left to right. Take note that some colours (according to my limited experience) tend to melt faster than the rest. Mainly the reds and oranges. What I did to minimize that effect is actually to hold a paper card on one hand to block off the heated air at the sides of the hair dryer as it blasts through the crayons, so that I can get a more concentrated and focused heating on a section that I want.

As the crayons melt, enjoy the process and make adjustments to the streaks as you see fit!

This is a great project for kids and families! It doesn’t require a lot of time. All you need to do is the make sure you give enough time to set the glue. The crayons will melt in no time like wax!

I plan to buy a bigger canvas with more colours this time round. I have come up with other creative ideas you can make out of this project. Hopefully, it will turn out great!