painting with crayons kids activity

The boys’ school had this art project set up as one of their “jobs” a few weeks ago, and now whenever I whip out my electric griddle to make grilled cheese or pancakes, Sawyer asks me if we’re going to do “crayon painting.” Yesterday, I finally decided that it was, indeed, a perfect day for crayon painting.

child unwrapping color crayons
First we started by peeling the paper off of a bunch of old crayons. I chose to use our cheapo Dollar Tree crayons, because they are extra waxy and don’t really color very cleanly or smoothly under ordinary conditions…plus, the paper peels off way easier than it does on the Crayola crayons 😉
(p.s. don’t even ask why Sutton is wearing a beanie in 100+ degre heat)

unwrapped coloring crayons for easy kids art project
All peeled and ready to be melted!

small boy wearing gloves and painting with crayons
I covered the griddle in several layers of foil and turned it on to the “warm” setting. I was still worried about my little guys burning their hands because the warm setting is still pretty hot, so I had them pull out a pair of their knit gloves for protection (hence the beanie coming out of the winter closet too). I figured the gloves would be easy enough that they could still manipulate the crayons without any difficulty, but would provide a teeny bit of protection from the radiated heat – they worked like a charm!

kids painting with crayons art activity
The heat from the griddle melts the crayons instantly, and they slide around effortlessly like brightly colored wax paint. I ended up having to grab a potholder of my own to hold down the paper and keep it in place while the boys were drawing. Sutton was fascinated with the entire process, and he made about a half dozen drawings before he lost interest.
little boys making easy kids art project
For all of his begging and pleading to paint with crayons, Sawyer wasn’t all that interested in this activity yesterday. He was more concerned that he might burn his hands on the griddle, yet he refused to wear the gloves, so he ended up giving up after just a few minutes. Oh well…next time!
bright and colorful crayon paintings
I love the way these came out! You can really see where the crayon was held in one spot and allowed to melt and where it was quickly moved around (which looks rather oil pastel-ish). We discovered that this activity worked best when the heat was turned up to 250 degrees, enabling the crayon to melt quickly and turn to “paint” no matter how fast you moved it around the paper, but at that point it was really too hot for the boys to handle safely.
Stay tuned for some fun ideas about things you can make with your new abundance of crayon paintings!
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4 Comments

  1. Ok, so what if you put a muffin tin directly on the warming tray and put one color into each tin. Could you paint with it? It might keep their hands away from the heat and the paper could be touched. I think it might ruin your paint brushes….. just thinking…

  2. Nice idea! Can’t wait to see what you’ll do with those drawings! I think an electric food warming tray would work really well for this too. Thanks so much for sharing on Craft Schooling Sunday, great to see you!

  3. What a neat idea!

    P.S. Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you like back when you make the tie onesie for your son!