Crayon art, or something like it

It looked so good on Pinterest. And it sounded so easy.

Fabulous wall art in less than a hour with just a fistful of colored wax and a hair dryer?

Just glue the crayons to a canvas and apply heat.

How hard could it be?

So I tried it. It started out OK.

Then I applied a little heat. I used an embossing gun instead of a hair dryer because I thought that might work better.

You know, the embossing gun I never use but just had to have.

 I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to look like, but it didn’t look half as good as it did in my imagination. So I applied more heat.

I didn’t like that any better, so I added more heat.

This lovely mass of wax isn’t what you’d call the desired outcome.

So the lesson here is that a little heat goes a long way. And I recommend using a hairdryer to get the cool drip effect I was going for.

For real inspiration, I recommend the following excellent tutorials:

Check out Grandma’s Garden–Crayon Art on Artistic Life. The kids featured here were smart enough to figure out how to do it right, and their projects look great.

52 Kitchen Adventures offers a clear step-by-step melted crayon tutorial. Just follow the directions. You can’t go wrong.

Another great tutorial can be found on Unsimple Living.

And if you want even more inspiration, see the fun silhouettes this artist added to her canvases.