Frottage and fixative for dry media in Easel by Zaweba

Rubbings are one of the first art techniques most people learn as children. Put a coin under the paper, scribble over it with a crayon, and the pattern appears. Frottage is the grown up name for it, and it remains a lovely way to bring texture into a drawing. Easel by Zaweba includes it, along with fixative, the spray that keeps dry media in place once you have put it down.

The two belong together. Frottage is about getting texture into dry media. Fixative is about keeping it there.

How frottage works in Easel

Frottage lets a texture under the paper show through every dry medium. Instead of the surface grain alone deciding where the pencil catches, a texture below the sheet adds its own pattern of highs and lows. Drag graphite, charcoal, pastel or crayon across it and the pattern comes through.

Because it works with every dry medium, you can choose the look. Soft graphite gives a fine, silvery rubbing. Charcoal is darker and grainier. Wax crayon is bold and graphic. Pastel adds colour.

Ideas for using texture rubbings

Frottage is good at the things that are slow to draw by hand. Wood grain on a table or a fence. Bark on a tree. Stone and brickwork. Fabric weave in clothing. Rather than drawing every line, let the rubbing supply the texture and draw the shape and shadow over it.

It is also a strong starting point for abstract work. The Surrealists used rubbings to find images in random textures. Lay in a rubbing across the sheet, look at it for a while, then draw into whatever it suggests.

Pressure controls the strength. A light touch picks up only the highest points, a firmer one fills in more. Build a rubbing in several light passes rather than one heavy one and you keep the pattern crisp.

Fixative, workable and final

Dry media smudge. Charcoal and soft pastel in particular sit loosely on the surface, and a hand dragged across them blurs everything. Fixative stops that. Easel offers it in two kinds, workable and final, as the real sprays come.

Workable fixative is for during the drawing. Use it when you have finished a layer and want to keep it safe while you carry on working over the top. Final fixative is for when the picture is done.

A good rhythm for a charcoal or pastel drawing is to block in, fix with workable, add the middle tones and details, fix again, then finish the highlights and apply the final fixative.

Where rubbings and fixing go wrong

The main mistake with frottage is overdoing it. A whole picture covered in rubbed texture can look busy. Choose where texture helps the subject, and leave quieter areas for the eye to rest.

With fixative, the mistake is fixing too early. Once dry media is fixed it is meant to stay, so make sure a layer is where you want it before you fix it. Use workable fixative between stages and save final fixative for the end.

Where these fit in the studio

Frottage and fixative work alongside the rest of the dry media in Easel by Zaweba: graphite in grades from 6H to 8B, charcoal, pastels, chalks and crayons. Fixative pairs naturally with the smudgeable ones. Frottage pairs with any of them and with any paper whose own grain you want to add to. Together they make a dry media drawing behave much more like the real thing, texture, smudges and all.