When artist Christian Faur was searching for a new medium to explore, he was not afraid to tap into his inner child to find the right one. After dabbling in paint, paper, and encaustics, Faur has turned to crayons as his material of choice. But instead of using the crayons to sketch or draw, the artist opts to create sculptural portraits made from hundreds of the carefully arranged wax colors.
Faur uses each wax tip as if it were an individual pixel, placing his hand-cast crayons into upright positions that together resemble conventional portraits. Appearing like pointillist versions of vintage photographs, the dotted portraits soar into focus only from a head-on distance. Otherwise, the images embedded in the collection of crayons disappears into the seemingly random array of colors.
Faur summarizes his fascination with the crayon on his website, stating: "My earliest memories of making art involve the use of wax crayons. I can still remember the pleasure of opening a new box of crayons: the distinct smell of the wax, the beautifully colored tips, everything still perfect and unused... Through a novel technique that I have developed, I again find myself working with the familiar form of the crayon."
Check out more images of Faur's work in the slideshow below and let us know what you think of the crayon portraits in the comments section.
