Crayola is celebrating its 100th anniversary! Is that cool or what? It’s like celebrating Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck’s birthday! They are introducing four new colors: jazzberry jam, mango tango, wild blue yonder, and inch worm. Four colors are being retired – colors that must have been introduced after I stopped coloring because I never heard of them. I wonder how they know which colors to retire?
I can’t remember how old I was when I got my first box of colors. It was probably when I was around 4. I remember using fat crayons. I think there were five in the box.
I liked to color with my Grandma. She had all kinds of coloring books for us kids. I look back now and I think this must not have been the most interesting thing to do but I did appreciate it! One time, though, I remember her saying that if I stayed in the lines, the picture would come out better.
That seemed like such a big revelation to me! I had no idea how to go about it. Grandma said to outline what I wanted to color and then fill in. I could use the lines in the coloring book to help me. What a great idea! I gave it a try, following the lines of the little girl’s dress with a red crayon. It seemed to work pretty well. My Grandma nodded approvingly. I filled in the rest of the dress with red, stopping at my outline.
I was impressed. Eventually I got old enough to stay within the lines all the time and I must admit, the pictures did look much better!
As I got older, I liked using a variety of colors. So many of them looked alike but had different names: sea green, olive green, yellow green … cornflower blue, cadet blue, sky blue … and so on. One of my favorite gifts was a 64 color Crayola box. There was a sharpener on the back of it, too, so I didn’t have to worry about flat crayons.
When I was a kid, my favorite color was blue. Sometimes I’d make a shade scale, starting with my lightest blue and moving down the colors to navy. My favorite color now is burgundy … but I’m not sure if that is a Crayola color because I really haven’t used them in several years. The last time I remember sitting down and coloring was with Kristin.
I thought I might like to color again though. Brandon and Ryan, the two grandsons, aren’t especially into coloring. But Taylor is a different story. Right now Heidi has the monopoly on coloring with Taylor but I’m sure there will be a day when TB and I are watching Taylor while the kids are in school. I can color with her then.
You never really outgrow Crayola crayons.
This post brings back fond memories of my childhood too! I was the crayola kid! Soon I upgraded to craypas. They were a pastel crayon a bit of an improvement over the crayola brand. The colors blended very well together for shading and adding detail. It made you feel like a real artist! My grandmother who was an artist introuduced them to me around age 9. The best thing to do with crayola crayons is to melt them and drizzle them over the paper in cool patterns. Just don't let your mom catch you!
Posted by: Teddy at October 15, 2003 09:54 AM