Crayons, Not just for kids

I've been invited by my local Ward to show the young women how art can be used to add beauty to their homes.  I didn't want to break out the oil paints and give them a demonstration because of the smells of the chemicals and the mess.  Plus this is to be something simple that they can do easily.  So I decided that the best thing to do is to show them how tools that most people may have laying around the house can be used to make art.  I choose Construction Paper and Crayons.  I bought these below at my local grocery story.

Construction Paper and Crayons

I also decided that a demonstration finished piece should be make so they could see the potential of these simple items.  Now I've never really worked in this medium.  Well not since I was three or so.  I did some basic research last night on Google for a half an hour, to see how other artist had worked with crayons and to pick up some pointers.  Then today I when out and bought my supplies and got to work.

8 x 10 Crayola Crayon on Paper

I had a lot of fun.  I felt like I was a kid again.  I used a picture I had on my computer of a still life, as reference.  I didn't use anything except the Crayola Crayons and a pencil to rough in the objects.  It is amazing to me how many of the principle I use in oil painting applied straight across to this drawing.  One of the things I learned early on is that you can easily go dark, but going light was very difficult if not impossible once the heavy darker colors were put in.  I could use white to lighten up hews a little bit on the stronger colors. 

I'm looking forward to doing this again tomorrow with the young women.  I think for the young woman I'll bring a flower in a glass bottle for them to look at and draw.  I'll try and take picture of their art and post them tomorrow.