Using Crayola Crayons as Fine Art Tools

“Blue Angel, © Sara Light-Waller, 2014.

9” x 12” Crayola crayons on Stonehenge paper.

I am a big fan of crayons. Give a person a crayon and they will lose all their artistic inhibitions. Honest, it's true! Give it a try sometime and see for yourself.

I had a hole to fill in my art calendar and I decided to try a fine art piece using Crayola crayons. For my subject I chose a funerary statue of an angel that I think is quite beautiful. I’m fond of painting and drawing statues, the textures and colors of worn stone are endlessly fascinating to me.

For this piece, I chose a limited palette of Crayola’s – Cornflower, Cadet Blue, Cerulean, Blue, Indigo, Blue Violet, Violet, Purple Mountain Majesty, Mauvelous, Orchid, Burnt Sienna, Brick Red, Black, and White. I used Stonehenge paper, as it has good tooth and you can scratch it without too much damage. As I'm sure you'll remember, you can't erase crayons. But you can scratch them out with a sharp craft knife to bring back some lighter colors from underneath.

I have made a little video showing the progress of this piece. (Actually, this is only my second video and one of my intentions for 2014 is to do more videos, so here we go – the first one this year.) I hope you enjoy it and my “Blue Angel.”

Happy New Year 2014!

Coloring Book Signing

Sydney and Sarah get their Horse Show coloring books signed

An impromptu coloring book signing occurred last weekend at a barn party I was attending. Knowing that I would be there, two little girls – Sydney and Sarah – brought their “My Day At The Horse Show” coloring books to show me. They proudly showed off their most excellent coloring and their own special stories. Then they asked me to sign their books for them. It was a true treat to see such happiness coming from the coloring books that I had created!

Here are some pictures to tell the tale. (And by the way, I think both girls have true coloring talent!)

Color on everyone!

Percy2 completed

 "Percy2" 12"x16" Neocolor II and Inktense pencils
on canvas board prepared with Daniel Smith watercolor ground.

Because who doesn't want a pony...?

I've been working on "Percy2" a bit sporadically this week. But here's the latest update. I have been adding layers of Neocolor II to the horse but have thus far left the background as an underpainting done in Inktense pencils.

Here's a close-up showing the smoothing process of the Neocolor II crayons with a q-tip.

I'm pleased with the amount of realism that I have been achieving with the crayons. Here's hoping the rest of the piece goes as well. :-)

Percy comes into further view

I have decided that this is a very fun piece! I've been working on it a bit further and am really enjoying the larger size (12"x16"). The DS watercolor ground-treated background is lending itself more to the brush than the q-tip thus far, but I expect to be using the q-tips more when I start adding Neocolor crayons pretty soon.

I've started adding the background
with dry Inktense pencils.

I've wet the top part of the background
and added dry Inktense to the bottom section.

At this point all the Inktense pencil has been wet
in the background and I've done some more
detailing on the horse's eye and the rest of
his face, also with Inktense.

Back to painting

Now that the coloring book is officially launched(!!!) I get back to painting while I promote it. For my newest piece I have returned to the world of Inktense/Neocolor II painting. This will be my second piece in these media, the first being my “Chickadee” which I finished over the Summer.

“Chickadee” was painted on Aquabord which I found to be quite a nice "toothy” surface to work with. For this piece (which has a working title of "Percy 2") I have treated a 12" x 16" piece of canvas board with Daniel Smith’s watercolor ground and am trying that out as a surface. So far so good, I think…but we’ll see how it holds up for the finished piece.

Here is the palette I have chosen.

Derwent Inktense pencils for the under painting: Fuchsia, Leaf Green, Beech Green, Oak, Sepia Ink, Bark, Willow, Saddle Brown.

Caran d'Ache Neocolor II for the over painting: White, Salmon, Pink, Mauve, Light Blue, Light Olive, Moss Green, Venetian Red, English Red, Cinnamon, Burnt Sienna, Sepia, Ochre, Light Ochre, Orangish Yellow, Light Beige, Mouse Grey, Dark Grey, Greyish Black, Payne’s Grey.

My palette

1. Here's the progress thus far. We start with the line drawing.

"Percy 2" part 1

2. Then add Inktense (still dry) to start the under painting.

"Percy 2" part 2

3. Here is the Inktense wet with brush and q-tip.

Now that it's officially on it's way, please check back and follow this piece's journey along with me. :-)

I have created my very first video for YouTube!

OK, OK, I do feel somewhat behind the times, but all the same...today is the day! Here is my new video which presents a tour of my new coloring book. I hope it makes you smile!

Are you ready to color?

“My Day at the Horse Show: A Tell Your Own Story” coloring EBook is now available for digital download at my web store.

 

It’s been a long road. It’s taken a lot of faith. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve done a children’s book, and even though this one is self-published, it was no less work. But as the process of creation is completed I realize that I have really missed doing books for kids. A lot. Now that I’m back in the swing, I have several more coloring books, paper doll books, and a cartoon book in the design phase.

So what’s so special about this coloring book?

I put a lot of thought into how to make this coloring book a little bit different. I decided to make it an EBook because I wanted to give colorists a chance to re-use the pages. If you don’t like the way you’ve colored a page you can just print out another one and start again. Or, you can color different pages in different ways. It also allowed me to charge less per book. At $5.00 I felt that it would be approachable even in these tight economic times.

More features

One of the things I’m particularly excited about in this book are the fill-in-the-blank captions on every page. This allows everyone to make it their story, told their way. I have also included a helpful list of horse show terms to give you further ideas for your horse show adventure.

Too old to color? Think again

I believe that many artists have been set up for success in art by their early experiences with coloring books and crayons. The simplicity of the crayon is so non-threatening that even art-shy adults can use it with confidence. With fine art crayons you may feel the specter of “making a mistake” looming behind every corner. Not so with Crayolas. Try them for yourself and see. With crayons come a sense of artistic freedom plucked straight out of childhood.  

You’re invited

I invite you to visit my shop and take a look at the new coloring book. If you like it please give it a try. If you really like it please recommend it to friends. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to play with and I hope that many will. After all, what else is a coloring book for?

Cheers to all!

Sara

P.S. I have put up a new information page about the coloring book here on my blog. You can find it under the "Resources" tab on the right hand column. While you're there you'll also see pages that collect my How-to and Art Supplies product review articles. Check them out!

My Day At The Horse Show

Here is the cover of my first coloring book, "My Day At The Horse Show." It will be available as an EBook for digital download next week from my website store. More details to follow... *happy smile*

Coloring Book Facts

A coloring (colouring) book is a type of book containing line art for a reader to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media. Although coloring books are generally used by children, coloring books for adults are also available.

According to Wikipedia, the McLoughlin Brothers are credited as being the inventors of the coloring book in the 1880's. The Little Folks' Painting Book was produced in collaboration with well-known children’s book illustrator, Kate Greenaway.

Another coloring book pioneer was Richard F. Outcault, creator of Buster Brown. Although today most people associate “Buster Brown” with the Brown Shoe Company, Buster was actually created in 1902 as part of an independent comic strip. Buster Brown was a young city-dwelling boy with wealthy parents. His strip featured the first talking pet to appear in American comics, a pit bull named Tige. Buster's Paint Book came out in 1907.

As a predominately non-verbal medium, coloring books have seen wide applications in education in some cases where target groups do not speak and understand the primary language of instruction or communication. This can be seen in the use of coloring books in Guatemala to teach children about hieroglyphs and Mayan artist patterns.

Since the 1980's, several publishers have also produced educational coloring books intended for studying graduate-level topics such as anatomy and physiology, where color-coding detailed diagrams are used as a learning aid.

More Crayon Facts

Crayola LLC started as “Binney & Smith” in 1885.

There are 133 regular colors in the Crayola line.

Crayola is probably the most famous brand of crayons on the market today. But it’s not the only one. Prang and Sargent also make scholastic crayons for kids.

Fine art crayons are made by Alphacolor, Caran D’ache, Conté, Cretacolor, Lyra, Koh-I-Noor, Steadler, and Yarka to name a few. You can find them wax-based, water soluble, and for use on fabrics.

Caran d'Ache Neocolor II fine art crayons

Crayon fact

 
According to Wikipedia, a Yale University study rated the scent of Crayola crayons to be one of the most recognizable scents for adults (#18), beating out cheese (#19) and bleach (#20), but falling well behind coffee (#1) and peanut butter (#2).

Who knew?