Frottage

I’ve ‘discovered’ frottage technique. This involves putting something under a piece of paper and then rubbing across it with a pencil or such. I was reading a bit about this and there is a suggestion, on Wikipedia at least, that this is a form of aleatoricism (no I’d not heard of that word before either). This is the art of chance, if you will. I’m not sure that there is a great deal of chance involved here though. I picked the subject, placed it where I required, chose the paper and pencil to use and chose which direction to rub and how heavy to apply the pencil to the paper. Clearly there is the element of unknown as you wait for the image to appear; you can’t be quite sure how it will look when it emerges. I think that must be true of most art though. I’m no art theorist however so I shall say no more about it. Feel free to add your own views by clicking on the comment option below.

I've used an Inktense green pencil for the rubbing and for the red detailing then applied some water to highlight the leaf structure.  For the red parts I dipped the pencil into the water (the first time I have tried it that way) and I enjoyed applying the wet pencil.  I'm happy with the outcome.