DIY Abstract Art Using Melted Crayons
15 Minutes
Easy
After 4 children and 34 grade school years successfully completed, I had built up a huge stash of leftover crayons! I decided it was high time to try and do something with them! Here is a simple and fun project to easily and inexpensively create beautiful abstract art to fit your own decor!
A hand full of crayons, a blank canvas and either a hair dryer or a heat gun are the only supplies you need. You may think that you are not creative enough to pull this off, but let me assure you, it is so easy - the heat and the crayons to all the work!
I started by removing the paper and chopping up some crayons into small chunks with a butter knife. (Note: You don't have to cut the pieces if you don't want to, you can just hold the crayon and apply heat to the tip and drip the melted wax directly on the canvas - see below where I use that process to add more interest to this piece and to create the other piece shown below).
I laid these on the canvas and turned on the heat gun. What I found out is that the hot blowing air will likely blow your pieces right off your canvas - so you have to hold the heat source higher to prevent the blowing or if you have trouble, see the solution in the next picture. Once the crayon starts to melt, you can move the heat closer.
We also applied the heat source to the bottom of the canvas to prevent the blowing, and this worked well to melt the crayon enough so it wouldn't blow away.
After the crayon has started to melt, it is easy to blend and move the wax around the canvas to create a unique art piece by blowing the hot air on various sections of the canvas. To add a little more detail, you can layer with contrasting colors by holding a crayon and appying heat directly to the tip. The drops of crayon wax are then easily extented on the canvas by blowing the hot hair directly on the drops in the direction you want them to go.
To finish this project, I will spray the top with a clear top coat.
On this piece, I held a crayon just above the canvas and blew heat on it so that the crayon melted in a pool on the canvas.
I did the same thing with a 2nd color. After I had these two colors pooled on the canvas, I used the heat gun to move the pooled crayon wax around the canvas. By changing the direction of the air you can move and blend colors.
Here I am moving the pooled color by blowing the hot air in the direction I want the color to move to. I used this same process and added a couple different colors. If I felt I had too much color in one area, I took a white crayon and added a few melted drops and then held the heat over that area to blend and move the white across the area with too much color. Problem solved!
Here is the finished piece. I used sky blue, purple a little pink and then added back in white to blend out areas that had too much color. Spray the top of your finished piece with a clear coat.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Comments
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2 of 48 comments
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What an inventive use of crayons! Great idea and it looks awesome
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I see a landscape with trees,
a river with a bit of a waterfall, clouds and even a cow!
All done in different colours! Love it!
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