Crayola brand crayons

Crayola Crayons are made primarily from paraffin wax and color pigment. Paraffin wax is shipped to Crayola by companies who refine it from petroleum. Pigments come from various sources. They can be natural or man made.

1903

Crayons use wax and Oil pastels use non-drying oil and wax. Besides the composition of the colours, there is a huge difference in how a wax crayon and an oil pastel works. Well, most crayons don’t. Pastels are thought of to be more professional and more life-like than wax crayons which tend to look, well, coloured.

The definition of a crayon is “a pencil or stick of colored chalk or wax, used for drawing.” So as oil pastels are made with wax this makes some oil pastels crayons. While oil pastels can also be crayons there are many differences between them and the traditional wax crayon.

Pastels can contain toxic pigments such as chrome yellow (lead chromate) which can cause lung cancer, and cadmium pigments (which can cause kidney and lung damage and are suspect human carcinogens). Crayons and oil pastels do not present an inhalation hazard, and thus are much safer than pastels.

Excite young artists with Crayola Oil Pastels in 28 rich, creamy colors for easy application and blending. Perfect for art classrooms, poster making, kids crafts, and more, oil crayons make art projects easy and fun.

When using soft pastels you need to be mindful that they often deposit fine dust into the air which you can easily inhale into your lungs. There are now non-toxic pastels availble, but it’s wise to take steps to avoid breathing in pastel dust.

If you want to use the best of the best, there are two brands of soft pastel pencils that you should consider trying: Koh I Noor Gioconda Pastel Pencils and Stabilo CarbOthello Pastel Pencils.

The Pitt pastel pencils contain a high level of pigment, but are wax and oil free, and are perfectly suited for fine details in pastels.

A cautionary tale: some artists who use coloured pencils like to brush off pencil dust with a big brush (rather like a brush-and-pan kind of brush). Don’t indiscriminately do this when using oil pastels. Oil pastels are oily and sticky.

If you paint over top of oil pastels they will resist the paint and will never really dry out completely. Mixed-media painting techniques: Many oil painters use acrylic for their underpaintings in order to save drying time. Once the acrylic paint is dry, they proceed with their oil painting.