The sun is finally shining and it is beginning to feel like summer!  We took advantage of the weather with some summer art and also used up some of our collection of crayons we have accumulated over the years. 

We have done crayon art in the past with a hairdryer and iron, but after we found a melted crayon outside I figured that we could use the heat to create something beautiful. 

My kids made this art independently and although it did not go exactly as planned we learned a lot and our creations were works of art!  This could also work really well in a classroom setting because it is so simple.

We tried using a cheese grater to shred the crayons, but it did not work as well as I had hoped.  Pencil sharpeners worked really well, just be careful with little fingers. We started by ‘sharpening’ different coloured crayons. 

Once we had a collection of colours we started our pictures.

We laid the crayon shavings on our canvas and created a picture with the different colours.  The colours looked great and my kids really liked the fact that their art was 3-d!

Once our pictures were made we put them outside to start melting in the sun.  We made sure that the day was really hot with no wind.  My kids kept constantly checking on their art. 

Although it was not my intention, our project turned into a science experiment (which I love!).  My kids noticed that some of the colours were melting faster than others. 

At first they thought it may have been the crayon brand, but then they noticed that it was the darker colours that were melting first.  They thought that the darker colours were attracting the sun and therefore melting first. 

This seemed to make sense since it was the yellow and orange that were the last to melt.

In the end, our summer art ended up looking great and gave us some beautiful new art for our home. 

If you try this, and some of the crayon shavings do not melt, you can cover the shavings with wax paper and use an iron on a low temperature to melt them. 

My kids had a great time and we spent the better part of the morning creating our art together.

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