Color Me Fabulous!

As some of you know I went to college and studied art. I have a pretty good grasp of art history, color theory and all that other stuff, although I didn't graduate (because if illness, not grades) and I really spent more time at IIT becoming a wanna-be geek, but that is besides the point. I know color and I know my crayons! Specifically Crayola, the gold standard in the kids coloring world and in mine.

When I was a child it was pretty obvious that I loved drawing and coloring. The 8 pack of crayons were just so not gonna do. I skipped all the smaller sizes and went for the 64 box. Oh yeah baby. Then for my 7th birthday I got the crayola master set (or whatever it was called). It had over 100 crayons and water colors, brushes, and all that fantastic plastic joy. Anyways, even though I had this big choice of colors, I always seemed to go to my Crayola 64-box first.

Each color I can think of a memory, I will only list a few to not bore those here who are still reading.

All my friends thought that the white crayon was useless. I mean we mostly colored on white paper, and even if we used construction paper it was rare and we were prolly not using crayons. I however, loved the white crayon, not for coloring, per say, but as my little oops friend. I wasn't allowed to have white-out (really what 4-8 year is?) but I did have my handy dandy white crayon to save the day when I maybe, accidentally was playing with my baseball in the house, and it left a mark on the wall. Easy fix for me and mister white crayon. I just applied a hardy press and poof, the mark was hidden (as we had white walls in our house-my mom only ever painted the bedrooms and not the other living areas) Granted it didn't match the paint exactly, but my parents were never that observant anyways!

Thinking back, I can remember my friends and I comparing proper coloring techniques while coloring in a coloring book. Do you re-outline the image, then shade lightly within those lines, or do you go heavy handed with the wax?

Now Crayola has introduced colors for decades. I usually don't have issue with crayon names, but sometimes they just annoy me. Like when they introduced Purple Mountain's Majesty in 1993. I mean really, don't you think this is just a touch wordy for an audience using coloring books? Is Lavender just too simple, because that is what the color really is. The same goes for Wild Blue Yonder introduced in 2003. It is a dusty blue, which is none to wild in itself.

You have to admit, there is something comforting in seeing a new box of crayons just waiting to be used. That deep yellow box with the possibility for you to be 5 again. And yes, I love the way a new crayon smells! Now I want to go color too!