Thursday, July 19, 2012

Melted Crayon Art

We recently did melted crayon art with our teens and it was a blast!  Each teen ended up doing a completely different style project which surprised me because I thought they would all copy one of the examples I provided.

Basically we used 3 different methods:
1.) Glue peeled crayons on canvas in a pattern and melt with a hair dryer
2.) Glue peeled crayons on canvas in a pattern and melt with a hair dryer, but remove crayons and move them around as desired for a more abstract affect.
3.) Lay the canvas down flat and roll peeled crayons around the canvas while heating them with a hair dryer.
































Notes: 
1.) This is very messy!  I thought the wax would stay on the canvas, but it melted and splattered everywhere!  Good news was the Magic Eraser cleaned it right up!  
2.) Also, we had trouble getting the crayons to stay glued to the canvas.  I dont know if this is a problem because of the glue we used or the nature of gluing crayons.  
3.) Some crayons glue and melt better than others.  Pink melted into a puddle immediately!  .... while blue-gray took forever to melt!
4.) Allow plenty of time.  This took most of the kids an hour and a half.  Peeling the crayons took forever and so did gluing the crayons down.  Also, melting time depended on the colors they chose.


Here are the directions to the two primary methods we used.


Basic Melted Crayon Art
Watercolor style Melted Crayon Art

Thursday, July 12, 2012

2011 AUTIS GRANT

In 2011 our library received two technology grants: $8,000 from Praxair and $1,575 from AUTIS.  Our library was able to significantly improve access to technology for our patrons with these grants.  Tomorrow I will be presenting to AUTIS on how our grant monies were used to increase access to technology for our patrons.