Crayon Cookies

Following on from my last post on wax crayons, I thought I would introduce this project for Crayon Cookies which uses up all those odd bits and pieces of broken crayons that you always end up with.

Method
Remove all the paper from the crayons - I found this was easier if they were soaked in water for a few minutes first.

Using an old muffin tray, divide up the crayons between the different sections.  The advice is to use an old muffin tin, but I thought I could get round this by using muffin cases - wrong!  The wax still got onto the tin, but it did clean up quite easily with soap and really hot water.  You can have great fun at this stage, the kids can get involved, and you can divide the colours out however you like.  I decided to stick to colour families, so I used shades of green in one, shades of blue in another, pinks and purples in a third, and so on. The kids did a couple of 'harlequin' cookies, with a complete mixture of colours.

Place the tin in a warm oven which has been pre-heated to 150 degrees.  As soon as the tin goes in, turn the oven off, and leave the crayons to slowly melt.  It's quite difficult to judge this stage - at the end of the period, not all of my crayons had melted, so I turned the oven on again at a low heat and left it a little longer.  However this resulted in them becoming a little too liquid! Possibly it depends on the performance of your oven.

When they have melted sufficiently for the individual crayons to have 'merged' but with the individual colours remaining distinct, carefully remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool.

I made my crayon cookies standard muffin size, which meant they were quite chunky for little hands to hold as crayons, and I had to cut them into quarters (this does have the advantage that it gives you a good point to use).  If you want to cut them, I found that the easiest way to do it was to heat a good strong cutting knife over the gas flame, and use the hot knife to cut the cookie.  Alternatively you could bake them as mini-muffins if you have the appropriate tin, though I think this would restrict you to only using the thinner crayons.

I can't remember where I came across the idea originally - it was in pre-blogging days, and I didn't take a note of it at the time, but in looking for some detailed insturctions I found this post by Ten Ten  helpful.

Another tutorial by Chica and Jo, uses ice-cube trays with completely melted crayons in individual colours to create a more sophisticated crayon with layers of colour.  They look wonderful, but I decided I didn't have the patience for this.   You can find it here.

Art Materials - Wax Crayons

It's been a little while since I started this series off with Canvas, and I thought it was about time I continued it.  This time I'm going to look at that staple tool of any self-respecting budding artist - wax crayons.  Traditional, cheap, practical, easy to use, these are so ubiquitous that their creative potential is perhaps sometimes a little overlooked.  Personally I have found that all wax crayons are not alike.  They differ amazingly - you can get short fat stubby, chunky crayons, or long, thin ones.  Some are hard and plasticky, others (perhaps unsurprisingly) soft and waxy.  Some will produce a dense, bright colour, others a pale washed-out colour.  Unfortunately, you can't tell just by looking at them how effective they will be, and price doesn't always seem to be a guide either.  Some of the best I have found have been given out as freebies at restaurants. 

Wax crayons are really effective for colouring large areas quickly and for creating large, simple drawings, but their unique characteristics make them especially suitable for the following kinds of projects:


Texture rubbings

Leaves, bark, brass rubbings, coins, wood grain, stone - lots of fun can be had with a piece of paper and a wax crayon - it's something that everyone must have done at some time or another - simple, but magical to a child, as an image appears before their eyes.

Resist Work

A dark wash over bright crayon creates strong contrast

 This technique exploits the water-resistant qualities of wax crayons.  Again simple yet very effective.  You create your drawing in wax crayon, and wash over it with a watery paint.  You can get different effects depending upon how thick the paint is, and the colour of the drawing beneath.  Used with a very watery paint and a white crayon, the effect is light and delicate, but wash over a bright wax crayon drawing with a denser black paint (not too thick or the paint will simply obliterate the drawing) and the effect is much richer and more dramatic.  Alternatively, if the pictures are small you can use a felt tip marker pen over the wax crayon (see Really Rachel's Magic Pictures). To get the best effect, the wax crayon has to be applied fairly densely under pressure, which requires some strength to do.  For this reason, very young children are likely to need some help with the drawing.

A pale wash over white crayon creates a delicate effect

Sgraffito 

First create a brightly coloured background

This technique has 3 stages and is most suitable for older children who have more strength to apply the necessary pressure.
1.  Create a colourful background with wax crayon, felt tips or paint (or cheat and use colourful paper)
2.  Cover it densely with black wax crayon, applying as much pressure as possible.
3.  Using something like a cocktail stick, draw your picture by scraping away the black wax crayon and revealing the coloured surface below.

Add a dense black layer of crayon over the top, and scratch a design or picture into it.

This example was created with a felt-tip background

The same effect can be created rather less cheaply using Crayola Color Explosion - Rainbow paper and pens. I bought some of this for my kids (OK it was for me really) and they (or me) had great fun with it.

Firework scene created with Crayola's Colour Explosion paper and pens

Wax crayons have lots of creative potential, so if anyone else has any projects they've created using them, feel free to add a comment with a link below. In the meantime, here are one or two that I have already come across:

Valentine's Card Water-painting
Leaf Rubbings
Magic Pictures