For the past five years Christian Faur has used crayons standing on end to create pointillist images of people, faces and building.

The crayons are lined up side by side in boxes with their pointed ends up like a new box of crayons.

In his most recent series, A Set of Melodies, Faur riffs on the same portrait by playing with handcast encaustic crayons in a variety of color schemes and patterning.

I don’t quite understand his “rule based” approach – I am lightyears away from his math and physics background – but each of the 14″ x 14″ images are fascinating nonetheless.

His somber work from 2010 of photographs from the Great Depression is especially appropriate these tough days. Here’s the Land Surveyers, 30″ x 60″, with a detail shot from the side. Just imagine walking around the installations and watching the images shift with each little step.



 

 

 

Every year on the first day of school I treat myself to a new box of 64 Crayola crayons since they are on sale just about everywhere at 50% off.  This year, the cashier and I reminisced about when we were kids and had to share our colors with brothers and sisters. It feels great to be all grown up and able to splurge on a box just for me.

Last year when I bought my crayons, I restarted the Saturday School to finish the exercises in Lindly Huanani‘s and my book, Color Inspirations. I got as far as the Contrast Table studio tool in Chapter 6 but wasn’t able to keep it going so I am going to try again. Third times the charm?

I will start next Saturday, September 17th, with the Stripe Blends exercise on p. 86. The exercises are fun to do even if you are not a polymer artist. If you want to join us, the links to past Saturday School posts are in a drop down under the Tutorials tab.

For Friday: A New Box of Crayons II – Faur’s Color Alphabet