Crayon Rubbings - Leaves

We were walking through the school grounds today when we noticed this clump of leaves. James, of course, had to stop and pick it up. He wanted to know what I thought we could make with it so I suggested we try crayon rubbings. These leaves are perfect for it since they have very pronounced veins and an interesting shape.

Here are our tools

James did one complete rubbing and then thought the paper around the edge was in need of decoration too, so we have a collection of partial rubbings.

The other children didn't want to be left out and tried different colour crayons. We found that the oil based pastels made the best rubbings for little fingers. The ordinary crayons needed a little extra force as well as a steady hand to stop the leaf slipping under the paper.

The Rainbow Fish

Christopher's lovely artwork from school. The background is a crayon drawing covered with a blue paint wash. The fish is a colouring in picture that he has cut out and glued colourful scales onto it.

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister is a classic story about sharing, and a favourite book in our house. I quite like the glittering scale down the bottom. 

I must try this with the younger children and see what they make with it.

A Rainbow of broken crayons

In our house I have a giant tin of crayons. Many of them have been worn down to tiny stubs, some are broken, and some are just too thin for little hands. I hate throwing out craft items that can be used, so I set out to find a use for all of these crayon pieces.

I have to admit that it took me quite a while until I hit on the thought of melting the crayons. Christopher wanted to make a rainbow, so we sat down and grated little piles of crayons and then we made little paper funnels to pour the shavings onto the page in rows. Once the shavings were in the rainbow shape we covered the paper with another blank page and ironed it on a low, no steam setting. When we removed the blank page we ended up with 2 rainbow pictures.