Frottage

Frottage comes from the French word, frotter, which means to rub. In order to create frottage, one would take a sheet of paper and place it on a textured surface. Then, one would rub with a soft pencil to create the illusion of a wide variety of textures. The picture would look like it is full of texture, when in actuality, it is smooth. In this picture of trees and the woods, it looks like you could feel the texture of the trees and leaves and branches, but in reality, it is smooth like a normal drawing.




In this picture by Max Ernst, the inventor of frottage, the city looks almost three dimensional, like you can feel the deatils on the buildings and houses. It is a smooth picture with no true feeling.