Having finally figured out where my photos go to when I sync my phone, I was able to recover some more photos of the melted crayon art I posted in Melty Goodness. So, for those of you who were wondering what happened to the rest of that post… here it is!
So. When last we’d left you, I’d pointed out the importance of using a new glue gun and not one that had already had glue in. I’m going to assume you’ve procured such a glue gun. Now, a note on temperatures: Low temp glue guns will work, but the process will be slow. You will have to wait for the gun to melt the crayon and then apply it to the canvas. This is the “hurry up and wait” method, because once melted, a crayon goes really quickly. But you have to wait to melt it. When these crayons come out of the glue gun, they are *just* melted. They will drip and run a bit, but overall they keep a decent amount of viscosity.
Hot temp glue guns will work just fine too, but they will be extremely quick. The crayons practically liquify in it, and that makes for almost an ink-like consistency of the crayon coming out of the glue gun, to the point that if you’re not careful, you’re going to be flinging hot wax where you don’t want it. However, hot temp glue guns will make the project go much more quickly.
Which is better? I have used both, and it just depends on what kind of mood I’m in. For the project pictured here, I mostly used the hot-temp setting on my glue gun, because I’m impatient. 🙂
On my project, I used a Cricut to cut out letters to spell the word “CREATE” and stuck them on the vinyl prior to using the crayons. They acted as a mask, so after the crayons cooled, I used an Xacto knife to cut around the letters, peel them off, and voila! Negative space focal points, ready made.
So now you’re ready to melt some crayons! This process is really simple. Insert peeled crayon into glue gun, wait for it to melt. Prop your canvas up at an angle, so the crayon will run down it. (You can also draw with the glue gun, have the canvas on a turn-table and spin it while you drip wax… use your imagination.) Apply the tip of the glue gun close to the top of the canvas and hold it there while using the trigger to let the melted crayon out of the gun. Keep it in the same spot, and the crayon will run down itself.
and after a while, you’re going to have this. This shows the vinyl letters after half of them have been peeled away.
Keep in mind when you’re switching colors between crayons that it’s easier to go from lighter to darker than from darker to lighter. A little bit of the melted crayon from the past color will mix with the current color at the beginning, so while it’s interested to get a yellow to an orange, going from a orange to a purple might not work so well.
But feel free to experiment! You really can’t mess this up.
Candice McMath 