After trying oil pastels, a medium I had not attempted since my formative years, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to dive into something that I really had not used in ages: color crayons. Yes, those wax crayons that we all learn to use in our youth.

I had an old box lying around, but I bought some new sets during my weekly shopping adventure. They are so cheap that they only set me back about $10 for a total of 176 crayons. I got the big 120 Crayola box and smaller 24 and 32 counts of their Colors of Kindness and Colors of the World specialty boxes, respectively.

For this first attempt, I only used the Colors of Kindness box. It had a lot of unique colors that were fun to work with.

I completed the work over a couple of easy-going nights, and the following is the result (also, yes, I accidentally put the shadow on the right side):

The tools I used were:

• Crayola Colors of Kindness Crayons.
• Generic Sketchpad.
• Ticonderoga HB (#2) Pencils.
• Prismacolor Premier Illustration Markers.
• Brisk Learner White Gel Pens.
• Mungyo Soft Pastels.

So, technically, this was mixed media instead of just crayons. To get the pure blacks and whites, I needed to use pens. For the background, I just shaded it in with a soft pastel stick. But, the primary drawing was done with the crayons.

I had fun with this, and that is always the point. Art should never feel like work. It should be relaxing, and sometimes that means just breaking out a medium from childhood.

Also, have you smelled a fresh box of wax crayons lately? Try it sometime. It’s like a sensory overload of nostalgia all for about $2.