Crayon art is a childhood favorite for most kids. Here is a great craft for kids that uses wax crayons and poster paint.
We at Kids Activities Blog hope your kids enjoy learning how to scratch art and making some unique colorful creations.
Crayon Art
One of my favorite childhood art activities was crayon art, particularly crayon scratch art. I loved creating these beautiful pictures with their bright rainbow colors. The bright colors just seem to pop so brilliantly against the dark black background. I just knew this would be a hit with my son so we gave it a try.
Wax Crayons
Begin by coloring a blank page with crayons. Cover the entire page and don’t leave any white paper showing. Bright colors work best – you want colors that will stand out against the black paint that will be applied in the next step.
Crayon Wax Art
My son is four and he scribbled bright colors across the page and that worked just fine. Older children however, will be able to create blocks of color such as in the photo above. Blocks of color will create an even more beautiful effect for the final picture.
How To Scratch Art
Next, use a large brush to paint black poster over the entire picture. When I used to do this as a child, I would cover the entire picture with black crayon and that worked great too. If your kids have never done this before, they might find it pretty funny to be painting over their artwork like this, but they’ll be delighted at the next step.
When the black paint has dried completely, start scratching! We used a bamboo skewer. A popsicle stick, chopstick or empty ball point pen would also work. The trick is to find something sharp enough to scratch away the paint, but safe enough for kids to use. So many fun effects can be created, and the rainbow that is revealed as the paint is scratched away is just so beautiful. I think what makes this activity so much fun is the element of surprise. You just never know quite how the picture will turn out until you start scratching away and reveal the surprise underneath!
More Kids Activities
What is your child’s favorite type of crayon art? Wax crayons are so vibrant and easy to use that they make the perfect tool for little artists. For more colorful kids activities, take a look at these great ideas:
I remember doing this project many years ago when I was in elementary school. Very interesting technique. I tried it once not long ago with young preschool students but it took too long for their attention spans to handle. I should try it again with a much smaller “canvas.” Thank you for the thought.
This is such a lovely and simple idea! Thanks for refreshing my memory.
What kind of paint do you use for this?
I think she meant to say black poster paint in the instructions. I haven’t tried this kind, but washable paint doesn’t work so well, because the picture shows. Even so, the process of putting paint on a drawing is fun and teaches about impermancy.
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The first time I did this, I used whatever crayon and painted over it with Sargent Art Time washable tempera paint (found at Walmart). Half the crayon resisted the paint, which is a cool art project on its own, but it’s not what we want to happen. The second time, I used washable crayons and the paint covered the crayon as hoped. What brand of paint did you use when you posted?