Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Solar Powered Art

During your travels through this magical series of tubes called the internet I'm sure that you, much like myself, have stumbled across this clever craft idea at least once. As a lover of all the super cheap craft stuff that can be found around back to school time and someone in need of things to start hanging on my walls this crayon art was right up my alley.

Only, unlike so many folks I decided to save some electricity and use our extremely sunny conditions to create the necessary heat for the project. I started out with two packages of Crayola crayons, an old canvas board and some glue. I removed one grey, one black and both white and brown crayons from the bunch and glued the crayons near the top of my canvas to create a double rainbow. I let the glue set overnight and stuck my canvas out in the early sunlight on my patio, propped up against a chair with some newspaper underneath to catch any drips.

I waited. And waited. I ran outside every so often to check on the progress and it was very anti-climatic until around the 2pm mark. Then it happened:



The purples and blues started first, in thin waxy drips then large chunks of built up mush as colors collided just outside the wrappers. The greens sat on the verge of dripped, glistening in the afternoon sun.



As they finally began to run the sun had left the patio and I took out the hairdryer to coax the remaining colors into movement. All it took was about three minutes and the yellows, oranges and reds joined the others on their journey down the canvas.



I let the wax solidify before bringing it in and hanging it up on my craft room wall. Eventually I would like to frame it, but for now I'm just enjoying the textures of it.



A fairly effortless and fun project that cost me less than $1. :)

P.S. I've been spending a lot of time on a site called Pinterest where I've been curating collections of lovely things, gathering ideas for things to make and hoarding inspiration. It's seriously addicting and I've been spending my snippets of time between reading, working, cooking and sleeping pinning things to my little heart's content. If you want to check out what the site is all about or friend me, you can find my pinboards here.

13 comments:

  1. That is so gorgeous and inspiring. I want to make one myself now. Beautiful.

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  2. Thanks for the information about Pinterest - what an awesome site!

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  3. this is trppy and SO colorful, bet my daughter would love to make one of these

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  4. Oh Danni,
    This just made me smile. It triggered a memory of mine. When I was in third grade I entered a poster in a Future Farmers of America contest. I did my poster about contour plowing. Trying to come up with something a little different I colored my drawn field with melted crayons. I ended up winning a 2cd place ribbon and a little prize money.
    Your crayon abstract is just beautiful.
    paulette

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  5. Don't you just love pinterest? I'm totally addicted! And I love that you tried the crayon art, I've wanted to try it for a while now. Glad to see it at work.

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  6. Fun! I've seen that post on Pinterest for weeks now, but you're the 1st person I've known who's actually tried it!

    I am sooooooo addicted to Pinterest too.

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  7. Blogger is being a pain (It's The Tea Witch here)

    Holy crap....I just found 2 boxes of crayons and I have a blank canvas. Now I need glue. :)

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  8. These are so much fun! I plan on making one for the boy's room but will probably wait until after I build some new furniture and rearrange his room a bit. I agree Pinterest is very addicting!

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  9. Eek! I love this! What fun... I used to melt crayons into my pillar candles so they'd look like they were bleeding as they dripped... yes, I know... goth much? *_*

    Anywho. Grew outta that (kinda), but this looks like just too much fun! =D

    Also, thanks for you & Joe's thoughts on nut related words *giggles*

    Yep... I've got the sense of humor of a 10 year old boy perma-attatched to my "adult" sense of humor. XD

    XOXO

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  10. You are so damn creative. I wish I had an ounce of it.

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  11. I love this! So fun and whimsical.

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  12. So cool! I'm such a tactile person, I'd be touching it all the time!

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  13. this sees like very fun to watch melting everyday!!!

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