- published: 16 Sep 2012
- views: 47804788
A crayon (or wax pastel) is a stick of colored wax, charcoal, chalk or other material used for writing or drawing. A crayon made of pigment with a dry binder is a pastel; when made of oiled chalk it is called an oil pastel. A grease pencil or china marker (UK chinagraph pencil) is made of colored hardened grease. There are also watercolor crayons, sometimes called water-soluble crayons.
Crayons, which are available at a range of price points, are easy to work with, often less messy than paints and markers, blunt (removing the risk of sharp points present when using a pencil or pen), typically non-toxic, and are available in a wide variety of colors. These characteristics make them particularly good instruments for teaching small children to draw in addition to being used widely by student and professional artists.
In the modern English-speaking world, the term crayon is commonly associated with the standard wax crayon, such as those widely available for use by children. Such crayons are usually approximately 3.5 inches (89 mm) in length and made mostly of petroleum (paraffin wax). Paraffin wax is heated and cooled to achieve the correct temperature in which a usable wax substance can be dyed and then manufactured for use around the world. Paraffin waxes are used for cosmetics, candles, for the preparation of printing ink, fruit preserving, in the pharmaceutical industry, for lubricating purposes, and crayons.
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