Experimenting: Melted Crayons

Do you remember our version of melted crayon art?

It's my most popular post

and

a lot of people have been giving it a try

which is GREAT!

I've been getting a lot of questions about it

especially about the oily residue that seems to seep underneath the tape

and

leaves a ring around the wax

like this:

It's pretty undesirable for those making the melted crayon art to be displayed on their walls

so

we decided to experiment with different colored crayons 

and 

different types of paper to see which would give us the smallest and biggest oil ring

We started with foamcore board

which is what we used as the base for our melted crayon art

You can't tell from a distance that our crayon art has the oil around the edges where the tape was

but if you look closely you will see it

You can't see it very well in these images either

but what you can see is that the apricot color on the left

has left a white-ish color on top of the red

and on the right you can see the red pigment separating from the wax

All the crayons I used were Crayola

They use paraffin wax and powdered pigment to make their crayons.

From what I gather about paraffin wax is that the liquid version is mineral oil

which would explain why there is an oily residue when you melt it

The sketch paper soaked up the oil well creating big oil rings

There was a bigger ring around the apricot color than the red

From the back you can see the oil seeping through

The vellum paper performed the best

it's made from plasticized cotton and therefore resisted the oil like a plastic would

it didn't soak any up and the crayon edges were very clean

If you are making crayon art to be displayed on your walls

I would recommend having a sheet of vellum backed by foamcore board

so you get the vellum quality but the sturdiness of the board

I would also recommend using masking tape with vellum instead of painters tape

I think it would stick better to the paper with no gaps for melted wax to get under

Look!

No oily residue seeping through the back

We tried foam sheets

which I don't think anyone should try

they were too floppy and the tape didn't stick worth a darn

Though there was no oil ring and the lines were very clean

The construction paper soaked up the oil like the sketch paper did

leaving big rings of oil

The cardboard soaked it up a bit

I think the fact that the cardboard fibers are tighter than paper like construction paper helps the oil to not spread

You can sorta see in the green wax that it kinda looks grainy around the edges from the pigment

The first picture in this post is from the watercolor paper

There was a larger ring of oil around the yellow was than there was around the brown

but you can see on the back that it soaked through under the brown

The glossy fingerpaint paper surprised me the most I think

It soaked the oil up well but the oil didn't spread much away from the wax

For some reason though the glossy paper made the wax and pigment separate quite a bit

You can clearly see the pigment particles floating in the clear wax

Overall from the experiment we found that the paper with bigger fibers soak the oil up more leaving a bigger ring.

The darker colors seem to separate pigment and wax more than the lighter colors. 

I was looking for whether or not lighter colors or darker colors left a bigger ring of oil but the results for that were pretty inconsistent.

We didn't try stretched canvas because we didn't have any on hand but from what I can tell with the paper is that the fiber will soak up the oil pretty well. I would suggest using a canvas that's been primed first, that way the oil can't soak into the fibers

Have you done melted crayon art?

What has your experience been with the oil ring?

Linked to:

The Sunday Showcase
Living Life Intentionally Linky Party
Fun Sparks

{Easy} Yarn Spider Webs

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays

I like the creepy decorations best

and

what's more creepy than the thought of

gigantic spiders!?

Here is an easy way to make spider webs with yarn

We made one last year before I started the blog

and 

it was so fun I decided to make them every year

Here's how I make them:

Negative Art and Cotton Swab Bones

We made negative art by spraying paint on top of our hands!

TP Roll Mummy {Prints and Garland}

October is upon us!

Time for scary ghouls and goblins

ghosties and witches

vampires and zombies

and

mummies!!

My mom just bought a book for the girls called

The Runaway Mummy

by Michael Rex

He writes parodies of popular children's stories

this one is a parody of The Runaway Bunny

 Since we were reading about mummies we decided we wanted to make some

 You need toilet paper rolls

and

gauze

 Then we decided to make prints with them

So I set out some black paper and white paint

When the prints were dry I cut them out

C glued googly eyes to them

Then colored over them with oil pastels to "age" them

 

Waiting for their eyes to dry

We punched two holes into each mummy and strung them up with yarn

My husband says they look like the Mini Wheats characters

 The toilet paper roll mummies became all stiff and kooky looking 

because the way the paint dried on the gauze

So C rubbed the oil pastels on them as well

and 

glued on googly eyes

I think they look really neat!

Our first Halloween decorations of the season!

 BOO!

These mummies are scaring over at these linky parties

Rainbows Within Reach

MONSTER linky party

(all submissions are monster related!)

and

Monday Madness

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Art for Little Hands and Let Kids Create