Melting crayons with Carolyn

Scott joked about wanting to follow me around filming me melting crayons and call it melting crayons with carolyn so I ran with it.

So I mentioned before I use the flash dryer from my screen printing setup to melt wax. I would assume most people do not have one so there are a few different things you can do. A hair dryer or heat gun works just as well. I am using card stock since it holds the wax better and I melt all my wax on a block of masonite that has been painted with white house paint. This simply releases the wax better and does not get freakishly hot.

At any time you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

I cut up a bunch of crayons in 1/4 inch chunks just because it melts faster cut up and spreads better now I left the wrappers on and that was lazy of me, they will have to be fished out of the hot wax before I stamp the paper down so I left that in to tell you to not be lazy like this. When I get a new box of crayons I usually peel them all right away but I wanted to do this blog so...



Melted but still not giving me the coverage I want

So I tilt it down then to the side to get it to spread a bit more.

I then drop a piece of paper on top and let it slowly pull the wax into it.

Peel it off and I have this.

Since there is still wax left I am going to stamp it again

Tada full coverage

Now to just do one final print to get the rest of the wax off the panel

Less wax, less coverage. I rarely clean the board and just keep adding new wax and stamping away since the build up over time also has it's own appeal.

What I have been doing with these depends by in large on my mood. Sometimes I look at the one like the second print and see if I see anything in it, if I do I accentuate it. Sometimes I like them as is - abstracted fun. The ones with the heavier amounts of wax I usually scratch images into. Sometimes I go back and add more wax again, or paint on them, or add marker accents. I am only restrained by my own imagination. A few examples then go play and have fun with it if you desire.