Crayons and More
A few nights ago I sat down with crayons again, this time alone. I remembered that there was something especially soothing about the motion of rubbing a crayon back and forth to color something in. So I opened my 64 crayon box and drew a triangle, and rubbed to fill it in. Then I got out another color, drew 2 sides to add a triangle to the side of the first, and filled that one in.
I continued in this way until the paper was mostly filled in. I notice that many of the colors have new names on them, and some are totally new colors. A lot of the new colors are really light and transparent. They look really good in the box but I am not sure I’m sold on them as drawing tools. Not that they asked me, or anything.
I ended up with this first image (see above).
It was very fun to make but I did not like how light so many colors were. There was not enough “oomph” in this image for someone who goes by ColorJoy LynnH.
So I started thinking of what I could do to make it more fun and more bold. I remembered my friend Barbara Hranilovich talking of how she “draws on her paintings and paints on her drawings.” I love that idea, and I adore her artistic style. So I pondered…
I considered taking a very dark-colored crayon and tracing around the sides. I considered a marker. I might have played with a silver paint marker but I had tried mine the day before and it had dried out.
Then I was up in the attic space that used to be my block printing/mailart studio, looking for a rubber stamp or three to make a get well card. And I saw some fabric paint. I love fabric paint, it is like rubber and it sticks to plastics and all sorts of things that other paints can not handle. I took some downstairs.
The next thing I knew, I had used pearlescent turquoise/aqua and shiny red fabric paint to embellish the crayon image. I like it a lot better now. Here is the result. It still is about enjoying the making of lines (and dots, and triangles) more than making a beautiful image, but it makes me smile.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:19 am
The embellishments really add depth to your original crayon image. Now it suggests an aerial view of mountain peaks and valleys. Interesting what a few more lines and dots will do. Very nice!
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I love the embellished version!