How can I pick a topic for a 3 month long research project?

You may try looking on ERIC and seeing if there is research on children’s play, coloring and educational development, etc. You should also write Binney-Smith and see if they have materials they could send you.

How about retracing how Edison invented the lightbulb, and try to do it (or at least theorize how you would do it) yourself. Put yourself in his position in that day and age, I think that would work well.

You have an interesting topic.

I did a little research and I see that wax crayons served as vehicles for a teachable color theory in art education. See the following, from an article on the development of art media over the last two hundred years:

”...there was not a viable color theory which could be adapted to the public schools until Albert Munsell’s red-blue-yellow primary theory…. His color theory was manufactured through Prang watercolors, colored pencils, wax crayons, and poster tempera and distributed by the American Crayon Company.”

And later:

“The invention of wax crayons by Charles Bowlby in Danvers, Massachusetts, in the 1880’s also brought color in easily used form to the classroom.”

So you might consider looking at the crayon’s contributions to art education and to the progression of art generally. It seems interesting enough…

The crayon as an artistic medium though appears to have been neglected by serious artists, despite its importance. I guess it served/serves chiefly as a sketching tool. You could discuss that or look at some famous artists who did/do use crayons. The Impressionists and Picasso would be good examples for that. An article I found also suggests van Gogh used crayons early in his career because they were cheap.

I like your idea but it’s going to be difficult to find sources for it. I can upload the PDFs of these articles if you need them. There’s not a great deal in them but they may get you started.

@absalom wow! thanks for all that research! Yes, you came up with pretty much all the affects of the crayon that I had (progression of art, and bringing color to the classroom).

Its not like I am stuck with this topic, its just that when I thought of it, it sounded pretty awesome. Now, it doesnt seem like it will even take at least 1 whole month of research.

Darn.

Don’t you just hate when plans blow up in your face?

Metaphorically and literally

@smile1

Yeah, I know I’ve had to abandon topics in the past for lack of research. It’s soo disappointing.

I’d pick the internet and write a 1000 page thesis on how it has allowed me to write the paper in the first place. Totally meta.

Then again, I’m an asshole.

It seems to me that that may be too narrow a topic for a three month project and that, as absalom says, you may have trouble finding enough source material. Could you expand it to another form of writing or art implement; perhaps the evolution of paint making and mixing; i.e., mixing in the studio originally from minerals, the advent of tubes enabling the Impressionists to paint “en plein air’, the beginnings of synthetic paint mixing and internet purveyors? Or pehaps something like the development of pencils or pens? I think you’ll find a greater variety of resources to work from with a slightly broader topic.

You might want to expand the topic to include the history of colour media in the fine arts. The history of artists’ ingenuity in devising colour dyes, tints, pastels and paints leads naturally to colour art media today. I hope that helps you.

What about advertising? You could show how companies use different techniques and color patterns to influence buying decisions. A lot of work goes into selecting the fine details for things like store shelf heights, color schemes, and labels. If you wanted to stick to art, you could point towards its influence in historical events, such as Picasso’s Guernica. These topics would also work well with (I am assuming this is National History Day) the multimedia categories.

I would think long and hard about stuff I love, then I’d narrow it down to something I’m very passionate about and get to work…hope it helps, just a real answer giver’s opinion.