ENGLISH FOR DESIGN 1
MEETING 9
Prepared by :
Dr. Ir. Indra Tjahjani, SS, MLA, MMSI
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Reading
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R U B B I N G S
• The three main techniques, frottage
( frotter, to rub ), brass rubbings, and
creative rubbings, each use wax rubbed
onto a piece of paper.
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FROTTAGE
• This is a technique developed by Max Ernst
when he was working with the Surrealists, and it
involves looking at the frottage (rubbing) until
you ‘see’ something in the shapes, lines, and
either adding more pieces (to make a collage) or
drawing into it with a pen. Essentially, it ignores
the subject of the rubbing. A rubbing of a plank
of wood would suggest waves in the sea,
sunsets, and landscapes.
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BRASS RUBBING
• This is a method of reproducing what already exists; and
involves little creativity. It has its uses in learning about
the history of costume, social history, the history of art,
just as the rubbings taken coins, man-hole covers, tree
bark, tombstones, have their place in the study of natural
history, numismatist, history, etc.
•
In Britain, most churches contain medieval brass
plate monuments let into the floor, which are excellent
subjects for brass rubbings. The earliest extant is at
stroke d’Abernon in Surrey, and dates from A.D. 1277.
The London Brass Rubbing Centre at St James Church,
Piccadilly, London W1, is the major brass rubbing centre
in Britain.
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CREATIVE RUBBINGS
• With this technique, the rubbing is constructed
by the person doing the rubbing. The technique
capitalizes on the delight of an image appearing
on a blank sheet of paper (merely by rubbing it
with a wax crayon), as if by magic, but at the
same time quite complicated aesthetic problems
can be dealt with in making the original paper
cut from which the rubbing is taken. These are
the spatial relationships between the various
shapes and between the shapes and the edges
of the picture.
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METHOD - 1
• Cobblers’ wax (heelball) or any make of wax crayon is suitable for
making a rubbing. Cobblers' wax is a very hard wax which gives
particularly even distribution of tone and is excellent for bringing out
work done in thin paper on the original, or work using folding (which
the coarser waxes fail to reveal) but it gives a very grey rubbing with
no strong tone contrasts. Avoid ones which give are too greasy and
give an uneven build-up of wax on the paper leaving bare patches
often unrelated to the original design. Try using gold and copper
colored wax crayons on colored tissue or wrapping paper. When
crayons wear down it will be found difficult to use the small pieces;
these can be melted in an old saucepan and poured into a jar lid and
used again. The paper on which the rubbing is made should be thin,
strong and smooth (such as shelving paper).
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METHOD - 2
• Lay the sheet of paper down over the original (whether
an engraved brass or a collage of paper cut-outs) and
tape it down lightly at the corners so that it does not
move during rubbing. Use the whole length of the wax
crayon in rubbing, not just the tip. If you rub evenly all
over the original, a rather grey picture results, with every
part having the same emphasis. A more satisfying result
is obtained if certain parts are made stronger in tone by
harder rubbing, and other parts understated by only
lightly rubbing with the wax. A greater sense of form can
be expressed by the general direction and weight of the
strokes.
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PRINTING FROM RUBBINGS
• A heavy rubbing made with black wax crayon
can be used to take a print from with a hot iron.
To do this, lay the rubbing face down on a clean
sheet of paper of the same size as the rubbing.
With a warm iron, iron the back of the original
rubbing with a medium hot iron. If the paper
browns slightly, turn to a lower temperature
setting. However the iron must be fairly hot,
because the wax has to melt and the excess be
absorbed by the lower paper. The quality of the
print depends on the surface of the paper used
for the print.
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SEE THE EXERCISE IN THE SEPARATE
DOCUMENT
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