what's the difference between cheap pencils and crayons for coloring?

Question

I heard that colored pencils use wax(or clay) as a pigment vehicle, and crayons(wax pastels) use wax as pigment vehicle.I found recently that Crayons are mind blowingly cheap(96 crayola crayons for $6), whereas colored pencils tend to go for at least $2 for a pack of 24.I am starting to think I should just switch to crayons for when I need to get some color down, especially if I intend to take photographs of them rather than frame them.I tried looking up on google what the difference between crayons and colored pencils were, but I couldn't find anything. My question are1. Are there any drawbacks to blending crayons with pencils(such as crayola/prismacolor scholar)? 2. Are there any drawbacks to using crayons over pencils? I couldn't find any lightfastness information, and can't think of any reason for them to behave any differently than a typical pencil other than not having wood, and being softer.

Answer 1

The thing with crayons is that they're quite difficult to blend, and don't usually fully cover the page. With pencils, the color goes on much more smoothly and allows for much easier blending. Because of the full coverage issue, it can be difficult to effectively mix crayons and pencils in one piece. Unless you can figure out how to rectify that, you're going too be able to tell where crayons were used as opposed to where pencils were.

I would suggest using pencils over crayons. The quality is just so much better. They may be a tad more expensive, but it really is worth it.