I was online one day and saw an artist I follow making her own crayons and realized that I had all of the supplies to make my own. I love using these for soft, natural colors, creating frottage and texturing effects, and combining them with stencils and woodblocks for fun patterns. You can use them in a similar fashion to oil pastels - you can see in the swatch card below that they blend and smudge beautifully.
I've used almost entirely all-natural pigments as well as cosmetic grade organic soy and carnauba waxes in the creation of these crayons, so they're generally safe for your skin. (Those who are ultra sensitive may still want to use gloves.) I love the subtle, earthy colors in this palette - note that the Armenian Purple Ocher and the Slate Gray colors are quite light, but they have a gorgeous subtle hue when used on a light background.
Each set comes with 10 crayons (the large crayons have a wrapper denoting the color.) The colors are:
Note that I make these in small batches and although I measure and use a recipe, there may be small variations in color from batch to batch. I also switched to a new mold for the large crayons (for more efficient and consistent results,) and the new crayons are much larger than my original "large" set. Also, the crayons are hand-poured and so the thickness may vary. The new crayons are a bit over 1" wide and will all be at least 5/8" thick.
*Tip: sometimes the pigments settle a bit in the wax - I do my best to prevent it, but sometimes the bottom of the crayon is lightly pigmented - I color using the tops for best results.
I've used almost entirely all-natural pigments as well as cosmetic grade organic soy and carnauba waxes in the creation of these crayons, so they're generally safe for your skin. (Those who are ultra sensitive may still want to use gloves.) I love the subtle, earthy colors in this palette - note that the Armenian Purple Ocher and the Slate Gray colors are quite light, but they have a gorgeous subtle hue when used on a light background.
Each set comes with 10 crayons (the large crayons have a wrapper denoting the color.) The colors are:
- Chinese Vermillion
- Natural Red Oxide
- Luberon Orange Ocher
- Blue Ridge Yellow Ocher
- Verona Green Earth
- French Turquoise
- Armenian Purple Ocher
- Luberon Burnt Sienna
- Slate Gray
- Cassel Earth
Note that I make these in small batches and although I measure and use a recipe, there may be small variations in color from batch to batch. I also switched to a new mold for the large crayons (for more efficient and consistent results,) and the new crayons are much larger than my original "large" set. Also, the crayons are hand-poured and so the thickness may vary. The new crayons are a bit over 1" wide and will all be at least 5/8" thick.
*Tip: sometimes the pigments settle a bit in the wax - I do my best to prevent it, but sometimes the bottom of the crayon is lightly pigmented - I color using the tops for best results.
Below you can see the swatch card I made - I've scribbled the color and then blended out the bottom / right half of the swatch with my finger so that you can see how smooth and beautiful these are as well as the lovely, earthy hues.
One of my most frequently asked questions is whether these crayons work on fabric. And the answer is, yes! They're fabulous on fabric. I pulled out a piece of hand-dyed vintage cotton and just doodled with a few crayons from Set 1 and Set 2... you can see how nicely the color goes on, how vibrant it can be (obviously depending on both the colors you use and the color of the fabric,) and depending on the surface of the fabric, they're even still a bit blendable. And although soy wax is water soluble, the pigments themselves are permanent and the carnauba wax helps to make the crayon marks able to withstand washing (up to a point... these will eventually wear off on anything that's washed frequently.)
