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?

Why coloring books?

By the end of this week I hope to have my first coloring book up for sale as an EBook on my website. The creation of this coloring book is the culmination of many years of process for me as a children’s illustrator and writer. Coloring is an activity that brings us all back to the time before many of us stopped enjoying the creative and expansive delights of making art. To a time before we experienced the frustration of not being able to portray the world we see around us accurately.

According to Betty Edwards, author of the landmark book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, “The majority of adults in the Western World do not progress in art skills much beyond the level of development they reached at age nine or ten.” This is the stage when children become fascinated by realism. This is also the stage of development where if correct and useful artistic guidance is not received by the child, their art skills stultify and eventually go into a permanent state of artistic crisis.

The beginning of adolescence creates a conflict for children between their increasingly complex perceptions of the world around them and their current level of artistic skills. They simply don’t know how to draw what they are seeing, correctly. Before the age of nine, children are less interested in realism and more interested in portraying feelings in their drawings. As any parent knows, these earlier drawings are not realistic, but certainly prolific. After the age of nine, children become desperate to capture the world as it actually is.

As an educator, I have always felt strongly that children can and should be taught how to draw accurately. They want it and we owe it to them as teachers to provide that education to them. But as many art teachers do not have a great deal of confidence in their own abilities to teach the art of seeing, they may have trouble assisting the child as required. I believe it is of benefit to every artist and teacher to look back into their own past and see if they still carry any of the blocks that may have been put there by careless comments and poor teachers. Once the blocks begin to loosen, we can begin to experience the boundless creativity and fun associated with expressing the world confidently through art once again.

Visual Acoustics

"Post Modernism is to architecture as female impersonation is to femininity." - from Visual Acoustics

Two years ago an intriguing independent film came out called, "Visual Acoustics." It was about the life and works of architectural photographer, Julius Shulman. As it was a small, art film, once gone it was really hard to find. We didn’t know if it would ever be marketed as a mainstream DVD.

The other day I saw that it was playing on the Sundance Channel and taped it. We watched it today. It proved a most remarkable movie about a most remarkable photographer. Shulman made an enormous contribution to 20th century photography (architectural or otherwise). I highly recommend this film if you can find it. It, and his works, are things of beauty.

Planning and catfish

This was my week to write up my next set of 90 day goals for the business and for myself. I find this process somewhat stressful, as creating specific/time-bound goals is always tricky. Not only do you need to get things done by a certain time but you also need to be willing to succeed. For many people, the fear of success is a constant challenge. I am one of these people and I need to monitor my progress carefully in order to make sure that I’m not dismantling my progress even as I make it. The same is true for my health and fitness. I know what is most healthy for me but do I make that a way of life? Not hardly. *chuckle* But I’ve been thinking that it may be time to do better. After all, there’s no downside and every reason to recommit to health. So why not?

Taking a little break from my planning sessions, I did a pen & ink drawing for the Noodler’s company's 2011 art contest. I think it’s quite cute. I don’t want to show it off yet, as they should be the first to see it, but here’s the little guy I drew on the envelope.

On the envelope he said, "Please...no folding or bending! OK?"

The Busiest Week!

I realize that I haven’t written here in a little while. When I last posted (about two weeks ago) all was proceeding along expected and “normal” lines. That is to say, my coloring book was nearly completed, but for the captions, an introduction, and glossary of terms. But the artwork was done! Yeah!

Then, out of the blue, a whirlwind picked me up like a mystical sandstorm and flung me up into the air!

With extremely little effort we found a house to buy (our first!), I moved my horse to a lovely new farm (after 3 years at the old one), suddenly my class on Flower Essences for Pets (which I had thought canceled due to lack of interest) was ON and with only about 12 hours notice to prepare. Not to mention the regular coordination of my weekly animal massages, business meetings for design projects, and, did I mention that we’re BUYING A HOUSE?!?

It was crazy!

Amazingly all went beautifully and smoothly. Yesterday I took a little time off and rode my pony around the new farm. What a delight!

Thumbs up for my first ride at the new farm.

Today, with my feet back on the ground at last, I am finally able to start thinking about my coloring book again. As a prequel to seeing the actual completed book (to be unveiled here VERY soon) I thought I’d share a coloring book image that I completed today for a friend who has a very cute dog named Bella. Here are both the pen and ink and colored images (colored in Crayolas of course!) 

Bella as a pen and ink image ready to color.
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2011.

 

Bella colored with Crayola crayons..
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2011.

Who ever said you can't do a portrait in crayons? *smile*

Coloring book update

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. In the past three weeks I've gotten a strained knee, replaced my windshield unexpectedly, replaced all four tires, again unexpectedly, replaced my cell phone (broken speaker), added new massage clients, been working on two logos, advertising a flower essence class, AND deciding to buy our first house (second attempt since the crash of 2008 when we last tried). Phew! What with this and that, my coloring book has gotten a bit of a bum rush. But no longer. I just finished illustration #10 today and that means 2 more to go. I'm glad because I'm really liking the process. I think I could spend great deals of time creating pictures to color. I hope to do just that! ;-)