Crayon

Crayon, in art, a mixture of chalk and a binding medium, such as wax or oil, used for drawing on paper. The two terms—crayon and chalk—are, however, often used interchangeably. Chalk occurs naturally in tones of black, white, or red, and these are the traditional colours for chalk or crayon drawings. Artificially tinted chalks of other colours are properly termed pastels. Crayon has been used as a drawing medium from earliest times (see Palaeolithic Art). In modern times, Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first masters to use black and red crayon together. The use of the three basic colours together—called the trois crayons technique—reached its peak in the 18th-century work of the French artist Antoine Watteau.