Explore textures with a rubbing journal

Texture journal: What is creative rubbing?

The sheet picks up differences in relief through contact and the movement of the pencil. Raised areas generally leave stronger marks than indentations, depending on the pressure, paper, and tool. You get an indirect trace of the surface. It is neither an exact mold nor a guaranteed copy of all its characteristics.

The Centre Pompidou documents frottage in Max Ernst’s work, including *La forêt pétrifiée*. This reference places the technique in art history without reducing your experiments to imitations of his work. Observe the principle, then choose your own surfaces, scale, and ways of combining them.

The creative journaling through collage offers a natural next step: the impressions become materials to cut out or layer together. You can also keep them whole if their origin matters to you. The page doesn’t need to look like a painting to be an interesting result.

Choose surfaces without leaving a mark on them

Start at home with cardboard, a sturdy coaster, or fabric whose durability you know. Avoid antique objects, fragile varnished surfaces, precious papers, and dirty or sharp materials. Putting paper between the object and the surface doesn’t automatically make every contact harmless. Pressure, rubbing, or a tool that goes beyond the paper can still leave a mark.

In public spaces, don’t rub over inscriptions, monument stones, graves, artworks, trees, or installations without the appropriate permission. You can draw or take photos when permitted, then make a relief inspired by what you observed on cardboard. A creative observation walk can therefore inform your journal without collecting anything physical.

If you observe nature, leave things in place when removing them is prohibited or could cause harm. The nature journal can hold a description of bark, moss, or a leaf. You don’t have to get an impression at any cost: choosing not to use a surface is part of shaping the project.

Make your first texture journal

1. Prepare a simple test

Place your chosen surface on a stable base. Put a sheet of paper over it and hold it in place without pressing down on the relief. Use the side of a suitable pencil lead rather than a point that could puncture the paper right away. Start with light pressure and check the result before continuing. If the paper tears or the material shifts, stop and change your setup.

2. Change one variable at a time

Make three small tests with the same surface: light pressure, a firmer pass, and a different direction. Don’t change the paper, pencil, and material all at once. That way, you’ll know what caused the variation. Note the conditions in your learning journal using simple words, without trying to create a perfectly technical classification.

3. Name the pattern you observe

Describe what you see: broken lines, scattered dots, a tight weave, a barely visible relief. You can add a personal image, like “slanting rain,” while also keeping track of where it really came from. The metaphor notebook can hold the poetic association; the texture record should make it possible to find out how the impression was made.

4. Build a page with contrasts

Choose three impressions rather than using every one from the session. Compare a dense texture, a more open one, and an area left blank. Their relationship creates a composition. If every area is equally busy, the eye may not know where to begin. Try several arrangements before gluing anything down, and keep a photo of your trial if you’d like to compare versions.

Transform an impression without losing track of where it came from

You can cut out a strip, turn a shape over, or layer two rubbings, as long as the surface allows it. A texture made from cardboard can become a roof, a road, or simply a graphic area. You don’t need to represent anything. The creative project journal can capture the intention: exploring rhythms, building a landscape, or working with contrasts.

To add color, start by limiting your palette. The color notebook helps you compare the role of a dominant color and an accent. A hue can bring different impressions together, but it can also hide their details. Test it on a copy or a fragment before changing the only mark you want to keep.

Read alsoScripting: Write your dream life to clarify what you want

Sort textures so you can find them again

Give each trial a number and keep a short note: surface, tool, paper, date. You can organize them by rhythm or material, depending on your projects. The idea notebook can include an index that points to the pages without copying all the documentation. A few reliable reference points are better than a system so complicated that you stop using it.

If you draw inspiration from works you’ve seen in a collection of visual references, note what you’re studying: layering, density, composition. Don’t present a reproduction of an artist’s composition as an independent creation. The technique is a starting point; your choices of surfaces and relationships should have their own intention.

End the session with one concrete choice

Before putting everything away, compare the page with your first trials. Name one difference you’d like to revisit: more widely spaced lines, a contrast in pressure, or a wider blank area. If you ask for feedback on your creation, ask a question about the composition instead of asking whether the technique is “well done” in general.

A solo creative session can end with three impressions and a note about how you made them. Clean the surface if needed, and put away the tools without leaving any material on the surfaces you used. The journal keeps a record of the exploration; the objects and places should be left as you found them.

Prepare for your exploration

Make a texture instead of searching for one outdoors

Cut or tear a few strips of paper using tools you can handle comfortably, then arrange them on a piece of cardboard you own. Place a sheet over them and do a light test. The overlapping edges create differences in relief. This lets you control the surface and move the strips around to compare two arrangements without touching a fragile object or a public place.

Next, try a steady rhythm, then introduce a break: parallel strips with one changing direction. Rubbing reveals this arrangement differently from the visible collage beneath the sheet. Note what fades and what stands out. A very thin strip may disappear; a thick edge may dominate the whole pattern. Adjust just one element and try again on another small area.

This approach brings composition into the process from the start. You no longer depend only on the textures available around you. The result can remain abstract or suggest a landscape, but you don’t have to name it right away. Keep the relief with your notes on how you made it if you’d like to return to it, or photograph the arrangement before taking it apart.

For a complementary perspective, watch this video from Miss Lam.

Sources

• Centre Pompidou: Max Ernst, The Petrified Forest.
• Centre Pompidou: Max Ernst retrospective.