valentine diy: crayons + watercolors

I was SO INSPIRED recently when I stumbled upon this amazing blog.

I had an image pinned to my "cool art" pinboard for quite awhile, but I finally got around to clicking over.  And wow, I was so glad I did. Absolute INSPIRATION.

Once I soaked in the eye candy of color + texture on Alisa Burke's post "creativity-with-crayons" ...I couldn't resist. I had to PLAY. (By the way, her photos + art are AMAZING... you have to click over and take a peek. I promise you'll be inspired too.)

I have had a long-standing love for crayons + watercolors. There is something about opening up a big box of crayolas or a palette of paints.  It must be the vast array of COLOR + the POSSIBILITIES of CREATING.

Anyway, I put a little VALENTINE SPIN on Alisa's crayon + watercolor idea. As you know, I've been all about pink + red lately. 

SO, here it is, my Valentine art creation...

All you need is a white crayon, watercolor paper, water, paint + brush. It's kind of magical really. It's a fun one to do with the kids (I think I'll keep all the art supplies out...even my teens might go for it.)

...And while I had the crayons out, I also worked on a blog post for Young America on creating CRAYON HEARTS (some of my favorite things from childhood).  Here are a few instagram snaps of my process...

Though I did it all from memory, there is a great how-to on this blog (I had pinned an image to my pink + red pinboard quite some time ago.) I still love this image. See even more beautiful shots of crayon hearts in the window here...





{image via}

You may notice, I didn't melt the crayons as much as the above example. I like the random patterns, but you can choose the look you want for yourself.

I hope you've had a great week.  And I hope this post brings out some good memories and maybe even a box of crayons. :)


Happy Friday!

xo

patti