More crayon paper instructions...

Jan wrote me a comment in the last post and it got me to thinking about why I like the way my crayon papers are working out. So, to be more helpful maybe I will give you all a list of steps and materials that gets a little more specific.

1. Draw and color. I have been drawing in these grids, which is fun, but maybe I should try landscapes, or portraits, or something...

2. Then I fold the paper in half and iron with a high, dry heat. I noticed that when I used a covering protective paper a lot of the color would come off on the protective paper, so I got the brainwave to fold the brown paper so that when the crayon melted onto something it would at least add to the effect on the brown paper rather than subtract. The wax of the crayons melts through the back of the brown paper so protective papers under and over are a good idea.

3. Brush or spray a wash of very diluted acrylic pait over the surface of the paper. Rub it in and then off. Dry naturally or by re-ironing.

4. Crumple the paper several times. The goal is to make lots of tiny creases, so crumple and flatten several times to get the wrinkles small enough. It makes the stiff brown paper bag feel more like cloth.

5. Color again, but this time with gel crayons or metallic crayons. Cray-Pas, oil and watercolor oil pastels make great marks too. Also try changing colors: accent something that you drew in red with yellow - like that. Oh! And Crayola makes these crayons called "slick sticks" They are so much fun to color with.

6. Iron again.

7. Draw again but with markers or gel pens. Again, think of changing and accenting colors as well as overdrawing patterns on top of the original shapes.

8. After that I layer underneath the paper with a piece of felt and machine sew through the main lines of the drawing. I have experimented with free machine drawing on a couple of pieces and also played around with pattern stitches on the machine.

9. I hand embroider, bead and embellish with buttons, or felt, or found objects as a last layer.

Post pics on your blog of your papers and leave your blog address in my comments. I'd love to see what you are doing.