Every two weeks some blogger friends of mine get together for an art series that explores a different art material or art process. Last month we tried fabric resist art and this month we are working with crayons. I’m so excited by this crayon art sculpture. It is such an easy art project for kids. All you need is a box of crayons (paper wrapper must remain on) and a glue gun. At first I felt bad about “ruining” a new box of crayons, but then I decided there are all different purposes for things and if no one ever tried using things in a different way, the world would be pretty limited. So, here’s my take on exploring with crayons.
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You will need…
Supplies
any kind of crayons with the wrapper (like the freebies from restaurants!)
a low temp glue gun
a small piece of cardboard or wood block
That’s it!
If you’ve read my blog before you may have noticed that I am a huge advocate of children working with real tools. I think it is an essential aspect to raising confident and capable little beings. low temperature glue gluons
One of the greatest things about this art sculpture is that it was super easy. I cut out a cardboard base from an old box and started glueing crayons to the base with a glue gun. I had to hold each crayon in position for five seconds to wait for the glue to dry. The sculpture is surprisingly sturdy. Once I started I kept going until I used all 64 crayons in the box. That felt important to me for some reason, like it was less wasteful if I used the whole box. Does that make sense? I think it felt more purposeful that way. Of course, kids don’t have to do that. Mini sculptures would be great too! The colors are so beautiful, it’s pretty much a guaranteed success project. I’d love to see a rainbow crayon sculpture or one in only reds or only yellows. I may have started my next obsession. The most important thing is you can’t do this without the paper on the crayons. Trust me, I tried family crayon sculpture art with unwrapped crayons first and it definitely did not work. The glue in the glue gun resists the wax of the crayon making it really difficult to work with, at least for this purpose.
Gigi was totally fascinated when she woke up and saw the sculpture. It was pretty cool. This is definitely something I’d try again. I’d love to make it a birthday party project when my girls get a little older. It would be amazing to see this on a large scale too. How about it Crayola? Want to commission me to make a large scale Crayon Art Sculputre? 10,000 crayons should do it? Who’s in?
To see other really awesome ways to explore with crayons please check out these links. You won’t be disappointed!
How to Color Fabric with Crayons by Willowday
Easy Crayon Painting for Kids by BabbleDabbleDo
Melted Crayon Art with a Glue Gun by Learn Play Imagine
Art for Kids Using Sandpaper and Crayons by Buggy and Buddy
Crayon Transfer Technique by Tiny Rotten Peanuts
Crayon Resist Photo Display by Twodaloo
Melted Crayon Art for Easter by Blog Me Mom
This is FANTASTIC! You are a crayon-sculpting genius, and I’m 100% positive my daughter will want to make one of these.
YES! Please post a pic when she makes one. It’s soooo much fun!
It’s a masterpiece, Meri!!! Genius!
Gina!!! Thank you so much! I was so excited for you to see it! xxx
This is so awesome! I love your brain!!
Thanks Stephanie! The feeling is mutual!
This is amazing! Love it! Looks beautiful for me!
I like it for myself too! I can’t wait to see what a variety of ages can do with this. Thanks for reading along!
This is so awesome! My daughter never colors with crayons, so we can make sculptures instead!
Totally! It’s addicting. Be warned! You may need to stock up on crayons.
What a fun and creative way to use crayons!
Thanks MaryAnne! I am enjoying it so much and it was so much fun to make!
The project, itself, is very cool, but the clarity of your pictures makes me want to try it just to get those pics with my kids! Beautiful. . .
Ha! Thank you so much. Hope you try it…and take great pics! : )
I just love this!!!!!! And I completely agree about letting kids use real tools!
Thanks Ana! Tools for tots, my new mantra.
Darling, you are too good… You know, you deserve much recognition for all of your clever creativity! I love it around your blog. There is just SOO much to discover and so little time. All of your blogger buddies are my favs as well. Who knows one day maybe I’ll really get my blog together and join you all!!! For now, I do enjoy being inspired and encouraged by you, all! 😀 Thank you for sharing your great ideas with us! Follower for life!
Wow. Thank you so much! What a nice comment to read! I really appreciate it and love that you’re enjoying my posts. Blogging is really fun. Go for it! I would be happy to follow along : )
Just saw this on Pinterest… LOVE it!! My only other suggestion would be… could you end up making one and then set it out in the sun over top a piece of paper and let the wax melt and drip to create something new? All I can think is that three canvases with three sculptures (warm colors, cool colors, neutrals) could make some really pretty art work to hang on the wall!
Amazing idea Chrisina!!! I just love it. I was thinking of melting it with a blow dryer too. Definitely would be gorgeous with different sculptures in different color schemes. I am doing this for an art class this summer. Maybe we’ll melt it with the kids too. Thanks so much for the inspiration!
What a cool idea! Love it!
Thank you so much Tracey! It’s so much fun!
Genius! I’m envisioning a sculpture in my preschool classroom. 🙂
Thanks so much Julie! Yes!!! They would love it!!
This is soooo amazing! I just love how cool it looks. I want to make one for myself! I may have to let my six year old help me out though. If you had a minute to come by and link up at The Makers link party over on my blog, that would be great!
Thank you so much. Just checked out your blog. Looks awesome! I’ll try to link up when I have a few. Have fun making crayon sculptures!
I would do this but I would do it with old broken crayons.
I would love that too : )
I just wanted to let you know that my husband and I were inspired by this post and we made a series of these as centerpieces for our son’s first birthday party and they were the biggest hit! We started out w/o a plan for any of the sculptures, but then they all took on a life of their own and each one ended up very different! Cheapest centerpiece ever — $0.75 for three boxes of Crayolas and a $2 mini, low-heat glue gun that we got A LOT of mileage out of for other projects. Thanks for the idea!
I am thrilled to hear this! Thank you so much for sharing. Just love love love that they all took on a life of their own. Fabulous!
You’ve inspired me to get the glue gun out for my daughter. We had a wonderful time on a nature sculpture with it today. Thank you for the lovely post and inspiration!
My pleasure Zina! So glad to hear you’re inspired. I think your daughter will love working with the glue gun. Have fun!
How awesome would this be as a mobile in a nursery?
That would be really cool!
Well, one could always use dollar-store crayons or Roseart/Cra-Z-Art crayons, that way the bad feeling of ruining a new box of crayons is all but gone.
yup, very true.
And the crayon painting project that was linked is technically encaustic in its crudest format, since encaustic is painting with wax.
Love this idea and I’m thinking my daughters will also love this! Looks like a great DIY project for the weekend. 🙂
Thank you! It’s one of my all time favorite projects. Please let me know how it goes. Have fun!
Merri, I love this idea. My 6 year old will totally love building a structure with a glue gun. My eye caught the picture of the Italian book, did you by any chance take Italian?
This is my favorite project I’ve ever done. It’s so much fun! We were at my aunt’s house when I made this. She took lots of Italian!
One could buy several boxes of crayons during the ‘back to school’ sales. In my area the Crayola Crayons cost 25 cents at that time.
Wow, thank for giving us an idea for kids art work. The sculpture supply tools are only crayons which kids love it! I’m so excited to try this. Thank you again. Please refer to this link: https://www.afasupplies.com/