Crayon Resist Halloween Art

In other parts of the country, you have this thing you call "Fall" where the leaves turn beautiful colors and fall off the trees.  It starts in September- I see it on my calendar every year.  Around here, the leaves are green and clinging tightly to the trees well into November.  Last year, our leaves (and temperatures) didn't start dropping until the 2nd week of December, when the rest of the world was getting ready for winter.

So to me, October doesn't mean Fall.  It means Halloween!  An entire month of Halloween decorating and Halloween crafts.  Here is one of my all-time favorite Halloween crafts.  You'll need watercolor paper, crayons, black paint, a paintbrush, and a paper towel.

Step 1:
Use the crayons to draw a Halloween scene.  Ideas include spooky trees, a full moon, bats, pumpkins, ghosts, gravestones, or black cats.  Be sure to color heavily and fill in all spaces where you want color.  Use the white crayon to make ghosts- you can see mine to the left of the tree.

Step 2:
Dilute the black paint with water.  I use a small squirt of paint in 1/4 cup of water.  

Step 3:
Paint over the entire drawing.  The wax of the crayons will resist the paint. 

Step 4:
Wipe the paper towel across the paint.  The colors will really pop, especially the white.

Here is my artwork, before and after adding the paint:

Here is Steve's artwork:

And here is Trevor's.  As you can see, he did not color as heavily with the crayons and the colors ended up more gray.  It's also very hard to see his ghost (at the top between the T and the r in his name).  The project still looks good if you don't color heavily, but it's a different look.

(The artist at work.  I love his concentration.)

Happy Halloween/Fall!