January 16, 2012
My Future
I find it really cool when youth come up with something new, something I’ve been struggling to figure out, but haven’t. Lately, during My Future afternoons we’ve been using crayons as an art medium. We started gluing crayons onto poster-board and then used a blow-dryer to melt them. Afterward melting, one would take a pen or sharpie and draw in image to fit the crayoned board. Youth did this for awhile and then moved on to drawing first, then placed tape over the drawing, then melt crayons over the board and tape, and then remove tape for the final effect.
While the youth were working on finding new ways to use crayon’s I started playing with the idea of finding a way to attain texture that was both more concentrated and detailed. After a few days of working with crayons and being very unsuccessful, I gave up. Then a day or so later, I walked by the crayon/blow-drying area and there was Ms. K using the dryer to essentially paint with crayons. There it was…just what I was looking for! Working on a volcano, she was creating texture by building up layers of crayon! Her lava became flowing and bold giving to it a feel that it was rolling down the board after it was dry. Ms. K had taken the basic suggestions on how to use crayon and heat and conceptualized a new way of integrating it with her imagination. Cool Stuff!
The first video speaks to how Ms. S took our suggestions and began using tape to integrate crayon and drawing. The second video shows Ms. K using her crayon painting technique.
© David B. Bell 2012
Chewing the Cud 