History of Crayons; How Crayolas Are Made; and Amazing Crayon Art

Photo by PhotopediaPhotosHow cool are crayons, right?  Didn't you just love cracking open a new box of Crayolas as a kid? The vibrant, diverse colors peeking up over the edge of the box just begging you to choose your palette and ignite your imagination.
 
Crayola was the first company to make crayons for children and were invented by cousins, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. They debuted their new product in 1903 with a box of eight (blue, purple, black, red, brown, yellow, green and orange).
 
Edward's wife, Alice Stead Binney came up with the Crayola title, when she combined the French word for chalk (craie) with another French word, oleaginous, which meant "oily."

Original box of eight crayons Initially, Smith and Binney's partnership centered around their company which produced printing ink and shoe polish. In 1900, when they bought a stone mill in Easton, PA, and began producing pencils for schools, they began experimenting with other drawing and writing tools for children. Having already developed a new type of wax to mark crates with, they next set out to use a similar recipe that did not include the toxic carbon that this earlier product contained and eventually produced the safe, non-toxic formula that Crayolas became.

By 1949, the company had dramatically expanded its color choices and offered a box of 48 crayons. Followed soon in 1958 with the introduction of the 64 color box, which also featured the first-ever crayon sharpener built into the back of the box.  By 1998, the number of standard crayon colors had grown to 120, and while new colors are often added, they are constantly replacing previous existing colors.

Thirteen colors have been retired over the years, bringing the total number of regular colors ever produced to 133. Many colors are often kept the same, but renamed; although there are 13 that have been "officially retired," and they include:

• Lemon Yellow
• Orange Red
• Blue Gray 
• Violet Blue
• Mulberry
• Raw Umber
• Orange Yellow
• Magic Mint
• Blizzard Blue
• Thistle
• Maize
• Teal Blue
• Green Blue

Check out this quick and cool, old school Sesame Street video that shows crayons being made.

While crayons might seem synonymous with school and kids, they are also beautifully used by fine artists as well. For example, crayon master Don Marco, who works exclusively with Crayola crayons and construction paper, to create some astounding pieces.

How's that for coloring inside the lines, eh?

Long live the crayon!