30SAL Challenge: Frottage

“Almost everyone can remember in grade school art class placing a sheet of paper over the face of a coin or some other textured object and rubbing it with a crayon. I employed this same method – known as frottage – to create the following portraits. For Beckett’s likeness, I had embossed plates made of selected passages from his own handwritten notebooks. For the other subjects, I used their own personal (and expired!) credit cards.” – Kumi Yamashita

Saturday is the day for experimental drawing, so today my suggestion is frottage. Use the texture as Yamashita did for her portraits, by layering marks to form a tonal drawing. A tonal drawing means no outlines, only values to express the forms.

If you’re new at this, consider using a photograph or famous painting as a reference. You don’t have to do a portrait, you can use a picture of any subject, as long as it’s a good reference photo with clear dark areas that describe the forms. Once you have a good reference photo, hold it up to a window, and lightly trace the medium and dark shapes onto a fresh piece of paper. Try not to think of what the object is. For example, don’t draw out the eyes and nose and mouth. Instead, turn the photograph upside down, and look for areas of light, medium, and dark (three values). Sketch out where the darkest shapes are, then the medium. You can use the paper as the light. Avoid using outlines in your final drawing. You might be surprised at how little definition our minds need to recognize the image.

Now that you have your sketch, you can gently run a pencil or crayon (or anything else you have on hand) across anything textured to slowly build up the dark areas.

When you’ve finished your session, post your project and tag #30SAL so we can find it online. To help more people find your post and our challenge, you can copy and paste these tags:

#30sal #seattleartistleague #frottage #rubbing #drawingchallenge #drawing #art #illustration #sketch #artchallenge #drawings #artist #draw #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #instaart #drawthisinyourstyle #artwork #drawingoftheday #dailydrawing #inkdrawing #drawingsketch #artoftheday #myart #pencildrawing #drawthisinyourstylechallenge #creativity #creativechallenge

I’ll post my favorites for week 1 later today. There are over 630 #30sal contributions now! It’s fantastic to see so many creative responses posted from all around the world.