Frottage, aka...

...rubbings are something that kids are taught to do from an early age.  Somehow, though, we mostly forget about it.

I love them...they're highly textural and can be wonderful additions to mixed media.  I've done the first example with HB pencil and a wide range of textured items.  Repeated light brushes of the pencil across a paper laid on a textured surface can produce a wide range of pattern.

A light wash of lemon yellow over all adds another dimension,

so it can be used as accents in this abstracted piece.

Here I've started a pencil rubbing directly from a deeply textured painting.

This test 'frame' rubbing with coloured pencil on palette paper was made using the corners of an actual mosaic frame.

I sprayed the result with workable fixative and transferred it to a support (in this case, mat board) to frame a photo.  And now I know that coloured pencil rubbings can be done on palette paper for transfer.  This frame won't ever hit a gallery, but it'll certainly go in my bag of tricks!

Some things you might consider attempting rubbings on:  stencils, textured doilies, plastered walls (truly lovely!), a row of books with spines aligned, stamps, bricks, textured wallpaper, a collagraph, and so on, and on.....and on.  Happy frottaging!