Crayon Day

I read that today was to be "Crayon Day" and, although I have heard nothing more about it, I decided that it could be Crayon Day on this blog. They were created in 1903. The inventor was Edwin Binney who formed the firm Binney and Smith but it was his wife who invented the name "Crayola". Alice Stead Binney took the "cray" from the French "craie" for chalk and "ola" as short for olegineax for oily - and now we have had them for 116 years as one of the first art materials children get to use. As you can see from my old box, they can last forever! My white is missing - I think I used it up long ago as a wax resist when using paint. I rarely use them now but they live on on my desktop. I like the new water-soluble wax crayons and sometimes use them for Life Drawing as they can be used dry and then blended somewhat with water...retaining some of the linear wax crayon look too. So, cheers to Edwin (1866-1934) and Alice and wax crayons!