Crayon Power

The purpose of this post is to introduce readers to a very wortwhile organization called Crayon Collection and to outline a simple art project that utilizes crayons that is fun for absolutely anyone over the age of six or so.

 

First, a little bit about Crayon Collection. Their noble mission is keeping crayons out of our landfills. Crayon Collection partners with restaurants to donate crayons, that children leave behind after dining, and pass them on to under-funded schools. This is a win win situation. Children are taught about upcycling that protects our environment and schools receive much needed art supplies. Please see how you can get involved at www.crayoncollection.org.

 

Supplies:

 

Crayons. Used and broken crayons are perfect for this project.

 

Sandpaper. A fine grade works best. I usually pick up a pack at a dollar store.

 

White paper.

 

An iron.

 

Cut or tear your sandpaper into smaller sheets, around 4x5 inches each. Talk to the children about creating a design by starting with simple shapes that they will be filling in with crayon. Details will be lost in this process, so emphasize simplicity. Depending on the age group, you may want to have a discussion about shapes that they can pick out from their surroundings. Have them think about filling up the entire piece of sandpaper as opposed to having one little drawing in the middle of the sheet. With slightly older children you may want to discuss foreground and background. In my example, the flower and leaves are foreground and the rest of the space will be background.

The children color in the shapes that they have made. Encourage them to layer on the crayon by pressing down and going over the same spot several times. You can't really tell in the example since the sandpaper is orange, but I have colored in the background using orange crayon.

Now it is time to transfer the image to a sheet of white paper using an iron. With younger children the iron should be used exclusively by the teacher or parent. Turn the sandpaper image over onto the paper and iron the back. You may want to put down a sheet of paper towel to protect your iron. Go back and forth several times. Lift up a corner to see if your image is being transferred.

 

After the children have seen their prints there are many topics that can be discussed. Why is the image made up of little dots? Because of the texture of the sandpaper. Why do some colors show up better than others? Dark colors stand out more on the white paper. Why is my leaf on the right side now instead of the left? Because the sandpaper was turned over. At this point the children can add another layer of crayon and print on top of their first image. I think it is fun for the children to check out how all of the prints turn out and have a discussion about results.

 

The beauty of crayons is that children build endurance in their hand muscles that will aid them in writing. With markers you do not need to apply any pressure to achieve results. Crayons have the ability to produce light and dark shades depending on the pressure you apply, giving the young artist more choice. Broken crayons provide children with even more opportunity to improve fine motor skills, and this project using sandpaper definitely strengthens those fingers muscles.