"These Colors Run"

Different versions of these have been been showing up on pintrest and various blogs for the last few days. It seems to be the latest thing in homemade art. I of course, was intrigued. I had new crayons. I had foam board. I had hot glue. And I had a hair dryer. I had to try it. =D

The original plan was for Dill and Sweet to work together and make a print for my livingroom.  I thought it would be a great first of the year art project.  And indeed it was a great project but as they were picking out crayons Dill thought it would be great to make one for Gaga's birthday instead. Now, how could I say, "No, you can't make one for your 91 year old great-grandmother." So I, being the unselfish person that I am said,  "GREAT IDEA!" (I hit the dissapointment...lol)

The picklets knew that Gaga wouldn't want a huge picture to hang.  In fact they weren't sure if she would actually hang it up at all but that didn't stop them.  They planned, measured and cut a peice of foam board to a size they though was just perfect for Gaga.

They played around with the crayons, moving them around until they thought the light to dark ratio looked good.  They then played around with whether the crayons should be glued straight across or in a design.  They opted for the swag window vallence design.

It was very pleasing to the eye...at first.

Once the heat of the hair dryer started melted the wax we found it wasn't so pretty.  The wax started splattering across the room.  We had crayon wax on our hands, our shirts and in our hair.

Plus it all melted together and created not so nice colors. 

We concluded there were two reasons it turned out looking the way it did.  The first being we mixed the colors up instead of keeping like colors together and the second being the swag design.  There wasn't any barrier when the heated air melted the wax.  So, the picklets tried again.  This time they hot glued the crayons, "CRAYON" side up keeping the colors in the same color groups.

And when the colors started melting, they melted in streams, keeping the colors bright and vibrant.

It turned out gorgeous!

On the back the picklets wrote "Happy 91st Birthday Gaga.  This is an original piece of art created just for you called 'These Colors Run'  Love, Sweet and Dill."  They wrapped it up and took it to Gaga's 91st birthday party. 

She opened it and really liked it.  In fact, everyone at the table liked it.  They liked it so much that I think there might be a crayon print  making factory in the picklets future.

(c) 2008-2011 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines