Monday, June 30, 2008

Frottage

It's been sunny and warm here the last few days. While I absolutely adore the sunshine it got too warm to leave the windows closed and now I have a headache, I assume from poor air quality. That's probably the most frustrating thing about this affliction: it's almost impossible to know exactly what my body is reacting to. On the up-side, this headache is not so bad that I can't function.

I took advantage of the sunshine over the weekend to go outside and do some frottage for the first lesson of my online Studio Journals class. I'd never done this technique before (unless it was when I was a child and I've forgotten the experience!) but it's quite simple. All you do is lay a piece of paper over an object that has some physical texture to it and use a pencil or crayon over the surface of the paper. I discovered that you don't always get what you'd expect. In doing some research on the topic online I also learned that when you rub over a wood grain in one direction you'll get one result, but if you rub over the same area in the other direction you'll get a different look. (Here's the link to that site.) I'm anxious to get back outside and try that.

In the meantime, here's a commercial applique I had in my stash...

and the rubbing I did of it:


I used a Prismacolor pencil to do the bird frottage. The one above was done with a regular pencil. That's the impression I got from the lid of a plastic pencil case I have. Down in the lower right corner you can see two tiny elements I lifted from a cut glass bowl. I now have pages and pages of this stuff to put in my studio journal!

3 comments:

  1. Fun stuff Sue. I remember the process from rubbing old grave stones as a child. Really neat to do it to lettering!
    I snitched the premmie top picture for the Orphan Train today *VBS* I'm pretty sure I have your ongoing permission to do that, right? *VBS* Only the orphan type stuff...LOL
    Maybe we can inspire SOMEONE or another! Hugs, Finn

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adorable preemie quilt. Someone's going to treasure that. Learned a new word today - frottage. The only time I've done something similar to that is on a notepad to see what was written on the page before from the hard indentions - always the spy :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. My goodness, you've been busy! Wonderful idea for the preemie quilt. I'm sure you're going to get a lot of great ideas from Sharon's course. Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete

I'm sorry it's difficult or impossible for some of my readers to leave comments. I do appreciate your visits and the kind comments I receive.