Mardi Gras Melt

Click for larger version.

I made this in high school; I found it digging through old boxes when I was looking for something else. This was made using plain old crayons melted in a spoon over oil lamp flames. Then using either the spoon or other tool (perhaps ink tips? don't remember) the wax was applied much like paint. I remember the melted crayon wax as being a somewhat tricky medium. On the one hand, if a mistake was made it could just be scraped off. But if too many mistakes were made and scraped off too many times the board underneath would just tear up. I think said boards were about the thickness of your average poster board, maybe a little thicker. And, as is obvious from the larger version of the above image, one could always put more wax on top of a mistake but that could make for weirdness as far as thick chunks of wax next to lower, smoother sections. Not to mention that if the wax was built up too high it could easily break off. I think I may have used toothpicks for the fine lines of her eyelashes and the feathers. Weird, huh? But it turned out pretty good considering I had no experience with this type of thing. At any rate, it was a fun, experimental creative process. I might try it again one day just for the hell of it.

And, no, I don't know why her face had to be silver. I remember I borrowed this image from a magazine ad so maybe that decision was made by someone else and I just went with it. I honestly don't remember all the details as this was made way back in the days of 1994 or '95. This is one of the weirdest and most interesting things I kept from my school days so I felt like sharing it.