The Wonderful Word for this Wednesday is “Crayons”

It’s Spring, and it’s May Mental Health Month, so let’s ditch the adulting and play art like a child. This is FANTASTIC for our mental health friends!

Allow me to introduce to you one of my favorite art supplies (besides straight up watercolor paints): CRAYONS. Yes, you heard it correctly, CRAYONS.

What do you think of when I say the word, crayon? Do you revert right back to your childhood with the 64 pack of crayola that came with the built in crayon sharpener? Do you remember the smell? Do you remember what it was like to open a brand new pack? Ahhhhhh…..such simple pleasures.

There are two kinds of adult crayons that I’ve been playing with as of late. There are watercolor crayons (you draw and then add water and it blends out like watercolor), and oil pastels which are rich and vibrant and blendable but resist water.

And when I say play, you know I actually mean play – no end in mind, just put some marks on the paper and see what you can do with each supply. What effects can you create? Cut some watercolor paper into smaller squares or rectangles and make some marks!

Watercolor Crayons

The ones that I have are what I would consider middle of the road in cost, but good quality.

The following are some recent play I did with my watercolor crayons (the bird is a stamp):

Oil Pastels

Here is my Mother’s Day present and I love them! I have had a small set of student grade Faber Castell oil pastels for years but they are quite waxy and leave a lot of residue. These Gallery ones are buttery and blend beautifully with very little residue.

I have been having a lot of fun playing with my new oil pastels. Nothing fancy, but look at that green to blue blend, isn’t it beautiful! Once I applied the color, I blended them with a paper towel over my finger. For some of the others, I laid down some color, blended it smooth, and then added sharper lines on top for detail. Another fun thing to do is to lay the oil pastel on its side and make a light rubbing on the paper as in the sky in the daisy picture.

One thing to note about oil pastels is that it works best to use a toned paper. You can see in the little tulip piece that the white of the paper peeks through all over the place and it’s very hard to cover. This doesn’t happen when using toned paper like in all of the other examples. I like Strathmore’s Blue Toned paper: