Melted Crayon Art

I know, I know… I’m extremely late jumping onto this bandwagon but here I am~ Better late than never, right?

I saw this on Pinterest probably almost two years ago and have been meaning to get around to it and I finally did. I did quite a bit of research on this (if you can consider googling a research) and learned that using a heat gun would have the best results. I acquired one from my Dad (he’s a retired contractor+constructor so he has tons of “man toys” I get to borrow!) and decided on a test run before allowing m

y Daughter to start on hers. I wanted to get the feel for this whole thing to assist my Daughter the best way I could and decided to share with you all on the things that I learned!

1. If you’re using a heat gun like me you really need to consider the power of heat on this thing. It’s really unlike using the blow dryer where you need to keep the nozzle closer to the crayons to avoid splatters. I recommend that you keep the nozzle of the heat gun 12inch+ away from the crayons.
   
2. BE PATIENT! It’ll take a few minutes for the crayons to melt but IT WILL MELT! I thought I was doing it wrong because there was no melting going at all the first minute so I brought the heat gun closer to the canvas. HUGE mistake because the crayon melted in liquid form causing it to slip out of its wrapper.
   
3. Bringing the heat gun closer will melt the crayons liquid-like. Keeping it at a distance will melt the crayons in droplet form.
   
4. Start from the bottom-up (or from the pointy end of the crayon to the end). I think this was also a cause of the crayon slipping out because for some dumb reason I did it top-bottom.
   
5. Like using a blow dryer (which I have yet to try), you have to mind the flow of air from your heat gun to avoid splatters. The red splatters were caused by my heat gun being angled towards the ground and too close to the canvas. [see second photo]
   
6. If you allow the crayons to dry (and it’ll dry in a few minutes) and go at it again with your heat gun, you will get a lumpy/layered/wave-like texture. Some people like this but I personally prefer without it. [See third photo]
   
7. A few important tips I picked up from my google-research was to use the Crayola brand and to keep the crayon in its paper wrap when gluing onto the canvas.
   

 

In conclusion this was such an affordable craft and so much fun! I got the a package of three 12”x16” canvases for $9.99 at Fred Meyers and the crayons were on sale for $1.04 (I used a 20% off coupon) for a 24 count. It didn’t create much of a mess but once again, I was using a heat gun so there wasn’t too much splattering. I probably should have stopped when I had the effect shown in the second photo but I really couldn’t help myself!

+I used 35 crayons out of 48 for this 12”x16” canvas.

+Click here for I thought was the best tutorial out there for this art project.