The secret life of crayons

We were mixing complex paint recipes in shells 100,000 years ago.

streetspirit Before crayons, humans mixed red ochre and bone charcoal inside this ancient shell.

misslily Crayon Colors

We mix the hot wax with the iron rust, making every color that we draw today

misslily Earth's oldest yellow and brown

Dyes dissolve completely, but pigments are just solid dust sitting on paper.

streetspirit See how ancient earth pigments stay suspended in wax to leave bold marks.

misslily A rare blue rock from Central Asia was once the world's most prized color.

Scribble from Scratch (3 words) - Scratch implies making it

BETA

misslily Mix and mold ingredients to discover how crayons are made from scratch.

Fun Fact

Deadly green pigment: Long before safe crayons, Victorian wallpaper used toxic arsenic. This beautiful color is rumored to have slowly poisoned the exiled French Emperor Napoleon!

Glossary

cochineal (noun)
A tiny insect found on prickly pear cacti that is dried and crushed to create a brilliant, durable red dye. Long before modern wax crayons, these little bugs provided the secret ingredient for some of the world's most vibrant red art supplies.

Gossip

Which natural pigment source is coolest?

Quiz

Which tiny insect harvested in Peru and Mexico is used to make brilliant red carmine dye?

misslily The stone worth more than gold

misslily Clay rich in iron oxide provided humanity with its very first artistic palette.

Fun Fact

Priceless blue: Ultramarine blue made from lapis lazuli was so expensive in the Renaissance that Michelangelo left paintings unfinished when he couldn't afford it.