Biography

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 Chinese marker (UK chinagraph pencil) is made of colored hardened grease. There are also watercolor crayons, sometimes called water-soluble crayons. Crayons are available at a range of prices and are easy to work with. They are less messy than most paints and markers, blunt (removing the risk of sharp points present when using a pencil or pen), typically nontoxic, and 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.