How do you make crayon transfer art? It's what happens when you place a piece of paper over a colored crayon picture and write on it with a pen, pencil, or even a toothpick! It creates a scratch art of sorts on the crayon drawing and when you flip over the sheet you placed on top, there's a beautiful crayon transfer image that got magically created.
Many have stumbled upon this art technique by accident. My elementary art students struggled to understand the concept. They wanted to color the overlay picture to achieve the result in my teacher example or they just wanted to use crayons or markers to get their color. I had to draw on their overlays first to give them the a-ha moment. See steps below.
 |
| Press hard to leave lots of waxy color! |
 |
The butterfly from my teacher example after the reveal — the pencil lines picked up every crayon color underneath! This image was enhanced because the camera was not able to pick them up.
|
It's Halloween week in my elementary art room, and we are all about pumpkins — without a single knife, candle, or scoop of pumpkin guts. This year we took crayon transfer art to the next level, and it might be my new favorite fall lesson.
Here's the magic: you color with crayons, draw with a pencil, peel the paper apart... and your drawing shows up in full color on the other side. No carving, almost no mess, and it works for all ages. The harder you press down with the pencil, the better your color crayon transfer will be.
 |
| One of our finished crayon transfer pumpkins. Some became masks, and others became cartsy pumpkins! |
What You Need
- Crayons (the waxier, the better)
- Drawing paper — two sheets per student
- Pencils
- Cardboard circle templates
- Scissors, plus a hole punch and string or elastic if you're making masks
How to Make Crayon Transfer Art
1. Color, pressing HARD. Cover a sheet of paper with crayon color. Stripes, rainbows, blocks of color — anything goes. Press hard, because that thick layer of wax is the whole trick. This colored sheet does double duty, so make it beautiful.
2. Lay a clean sheet on top. Place your second sheet of paper right over the crayon-covered one.
3. Draw, still pressing hard. Draw your design on the top sheet with a pencil. My teacher example was a butterfly, a flower, a bee, and the sun. Press hard again — the pencil pressure is what pushes the crayon wax onto the back of your drawing sheet.
 |
| My teacher example: a butterfly, a flower, a bee, and the sun, drawn in pencil on the top sheet. |
4. Peel and flip — the reveal! Peel the top sheet off and turn it over. Your pencil drawing is now printed in crayon color. This is the moment the whole class gasps.
5. Finish it your way. Cut the transfer into a pumpkin shape, color around it, add details — or turn a bold, colorful one into a mask.
Don't Throw Away the Base Crayon Sheet!
The sheet you colored in Step 1 is covered in beautiful wax color, and after the transfer lifts some of it away, it has its own ghostly lines and patterns. We cut it in a pumpkin shape using a carboard circle to trace around, so that sheet was beautiful, useful art too. Some of ours became masks, and some became just beautiful pumpkins.
 |
This is the crayon sheet underneath somebody's drawing. See the scratch art?
|
More From Our Art Room
One student drew a military plane flying over a road, with a tank hiding in the trees:
 |
| The pencil drawing on the top sheet... |
 |
| ...and the colorful transfer it left behind! |
 |
| A tree, flowers, and sunshine, transferred in soft crayon color. |
 |
| This student went abstract — zigzags and stars in rainbow lines. |
 |
| Can you spot the BOO hiding under the color? |
 |
| A bat for a grin — this artist committed to the Halloween theme. |
|
A pumpkin with a cat face, because of course.
|
And one more artist went sugar skull for DÃa de los Muertos — here's the whole process in four shots:
 |
| The pencil drawing on the top sheet — a sugar skull, with a heart for a nose. |
 |
| Side by side: the rainbow crayon sheet (left) and the pencil drawing that went on top. |
 |
| The peel-back, a-ha moment — the skull, transferred in rainbow crayon. |
 |
| The finished sugar skull transfer. |
Teacher Tips
- Press hard — twice. Light pressure makes a faint, ghostly transfer. Honestly? For Halloween, ghostly works too.
- Letters transfer BACKWARDS. Whatever you draw reads in reverse on the reveal side. One of my students put his name on his pumpkin and it came out backwards — plan for mirror writing if words matter, or just roll with it like he did.
 |
| See? Backwards! Still adorable. |
Bright, dark crayon colors transfer the strongest.
It doesn't have to be pumpkins. The reveal works for any drawing, any season. But in October? It's pumpkins, for sure!
Recommended:
