So, I took it upon myself to make another art project. We were cleaning out and organizing at the church and we found a couple big bags of cheap crayons from an old project. It was confirm that we didn't need the crayons, so I got to have fun with them.
I already had this cork board that I ended up not using for a different project, so I got to work on this one. It was quite the adventure! First I thought of just spelling out a phrase or word, but that didn't go well. So then I decided to make an actual picture! Above you can see the start of the 'grass' and 'tree trunk'.
I had a lot of crayons to work with!!! And I found that the most efficient way to remove the wrapper was using a small knife (the back edge actually) and digging a line into the crayon. This always cut the paper, and I was able to use the edge of the knife to lift the wrapper off. I had a lot of crayons to do this with and it took a long time...
The hot glue gun was my best friend for a few days while I was working on this. Obviously you see the grass, tree, sun, and cabin in the picture above. Here's the point where I most likely should have stopped. :P It was only after this that I kept making bad decisions. Mhmm..
I glued the crayons up for the sky with the intention of melting them together (I saw melted crayon art online and thought I'd improvise..it didn't work quite the same) but that really didn't work that well.
So then I had an ugly looking sky with no real hope of fixing it. However, I did get the idea to warm up all the crayons (hair dryer is being used this whole time, btw) and just use my fingers to smooth the crayons down and merge them together. It took some doing but I got it to a point where I could be content (though it wasn't what I truly wanted).
Then I got the brilliant idea to completely melt the wax crayons before applying it to the board. This brilliant decision ended up being the dumbest move I made. It wasn't easy to get the crayons completely melted, and then as soon as I poured it on the board it started to set.
Here I thought I'd get this nice smooth background layer of crayon, and what I got so so beyond ugly. I ended up scraping up all the melted wax ( some cork board came along for the ride :( ) with that same small knife. It took an annoying long time. And every piece I got up was another reminder of how poor a decision that had been. Oh well.
So now I was faced with funky sky and a torn up background. What was to be done? I went back to my handy dandy paint! The same paint that is now on our wall AND our table. It's the only good paint we have. And it was a neutral color, so why not. I painted the remaining background on the cork board (it soaked up a lot, who would have guessed) and also the frame ('cuz I'd made lots of messes on that while melting crayons). That actually worked out! So my unfixable disaster may have a happy ending after all.
All that was left was to figure out how to make this random piece of art directly glorifying to God (since it was intended to go back in the children's room at church). I ended up going with the different names of God. I just used a regular permanent marker....and here is the result...
It was not an easy project. I made my fair share of mistakes. But you know, despite all that, I really did enjoy doing it. It is currently at the church, waiting to be put up. Even if it's never hung up, I'm happy I did it.
