This year Color Your World Challenge was a definite challenge for me. It wasn’t easy. First it took me months – to figure out what I wanted to do. All I knew was I wanted to use the actual crayons in making the art. The image that started the crayon melting, so to speak, was this image of President Obama’s hands:
I was struck by the way he held them, calm and relaxed; but more than that, it was the color of his hands. A beautiful shade of sepia brown. After deciding on what I wanted to do, I spent many more months searching for 120 images that matched the crayon colors. All the time I was doing that I was contemplating how to melt the crayons and then, finally practicing it. After that I had to sketch all 120 images from the inspirations.
By the time I was ready to pour the melted crayons, it was mid-November and the challenge started January 1. The whole time-consuming process of melting crayons, pouring, letting the wax harden, remove it and repouring as necessary – then adding the outlines and finishing touches to photograph the images – by the time I got close to the end I was into mid-January still working on April’s images. And, I also had to make sure the Blogging A to Z challenge was ready to go!
I’m not complaining about anything – I put this pressure on myself – and I alone own it. And that’s okay because I’ve learned to be better organized, to force myself to make decisions sooner and to stay with the decisions I’ve made. I have a tendency to delay making final decisions and then change lanes mid-stream.
So next year, when I do it all over again – I’m hoping it will run more smoothly – it should – I’ve already begun the images for next year. So whether JNW’s Challenge goes forward or not, I will still post my work in 2018!
Here are my favorite images from April:
And my favorite 4 images of the whole series, starting with #4.

Send the art around the world!!
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