Max Ernst’s physical textures (rubbing and scraping) to pull unexpected patterns, shapes, and figures out of the background.
Our creative minds love comfort. When we sit down to create, our fingers naturally want to fall into familiar patterns. But what happens when you completely strip the artist’s conscious hand of control and let texture dictate the entire composition?
Welcome to part two of our Techniques of the Surrealists series. Today, we are putting down the pens and picking up scrapers to explore frottage (rubbing) and grattage (scraping).
The discovery of this method is famously credited to German artist Max Ernst in the summer of 1925. While staying at a seaside inn, Ernst found himself staring intently at the heavily textured, deeply grooved wooden floorboards of his room. To stimulate his hallucinatory faculties, he placed sheets of paper over the floorboards and began rubbing them with a piece of graphite.
As the rugged patterns of the wood grain transferred to the paper, Ernst didn’t see wood anymore. The mechanical, semi-accidental shapes began triggering spontaneous visual associations in his unconscious. By letting the texture lead, he discovered hidden biomorphic creatures, unsettling petrified forests, and eerie eyes staring back at him from the page, shapes his rational intellect would have never planned out on a blank canvas. He quickly evolved this technique into oil painting, creating grattage, where he laid wet canvas over textured objects and aggressively scraped the top layers of paint away to reveal the skeletal patterns underneath.
Mid-Month Crunch: When “Wrong” Materials Go Right
Trying to pull off a surrealist experiment every single day while devouring vintage media for my other series is…a lot. Especially with my October posting schedule looming when it is already mid-September. Time is ticking, so today’s experiment had to happen on my lunch break.
Naturally, I didn’t have the “correct” tools on hand. I grabbed what was within arm’s reach:
- Two sheets of standard copy paper
- A peel-off china marker
Finding Texture in an Office Desert
My workplace isn’t exactly a haven for natural textures. But just as I was losing hope, I remembered the weathered, wooden picnic table just outside the back door. Lunch break officially became art hour.
Unlocking the Imagery
Max Ernst would probably smile at what happened next. Despite the incorrect materials, the rough grain of the old table transformed under the china marker. As the patterns came through the paper, my brain immediately started connecting the dots, revealing:
- Incoming waves of low surf
- Concentric circles carved into the sand
- A UFO hovering above it all
What started as a rushed lunchtime exercise instantly sparked a brand-new concept. The rubbings gave me the blueprint I needed, and now, I have a physical set to build.
From Picnic Table to Miniature Set
A few days later, the blueprint from my lunch break went into production. I rummaged through my collection of what I call “ground cover,” a library of Rubbermaid food storage bins packed with sand, dirt, and rock-like material, until I found the closest match for beach sand.
I poured the sand onto a sheet of white foam board and gently traced the concentric circles into the grain with my fingertip.
Breaking Tradition for the Waves
Next came the biggest puzzle: the water. Historically, my go-to standbys for waves have been air-dry clay or resin. But this piece demanded something different. Resin would be too static, and clay too rigid; neither could capture the gentle, whispering low surf I saw in the picnic table’s woodgrain. I needed a new material to mimic that specific softness.
For the UFO itself, though, I stuck to a classic. I built it exactly how I always do: crinkling a solid core out of aluminum foil, then smoothly wrapping it in polymer clay.
Setting the Scene
Finding the right material for the water came down to how the final image would be lit. I’ve decided to push the ocean into a heavily shadowed, blurred background, allowing the depth of the field to do the heavy lifting. The focal point would be sharp and intense: a direct spotlight beaming down from the UFO, illuminating the absolute center of those concentric sand circles.
To pull this off without rigid clay or messy resin, I opted for a beautifully simple solution that plays perfectly with the camera’s focus. Gloss Mod Podge poured over smooth plastic and allowed to dry then pulled off, folded into waves and placed over blue paper allowed me to build the illusion of low surf. Under the studio light, the foreground edges catch the beam perfectly, while the rest recedes softly into the dark.
With the sand poured, the waves placed, and the UFO hovering overhead, suspended by ornament wire, the set was officially built. Then it was time to kill the house lights, turn on the spotlight, and see what this lunch-break vision looks like through the lens.
What do you think?
I kind of hate it, but I was under my self-set deadline. I’ll work on it a bit more to see of I can come up with anything better.
Have you ever tried your hand at frottage, or let a completely “incorrect” set of materials completely hijack your creative direction? How do you scramble to stay inspired when you’re up against a brutal deadline?
Drop your thoughts, or your own favorite unconventional material in the comments below!
Sources Used in this Post:
- Ernst, Max. (1926). Histoire Naturelle (Natural History portfolio showcasing early frottage). Detailed plates via The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Artist Profile.
- Khan Academy. (2022). “Surrealist Techniques: Max Ernst’s Automatism.” Khan Academy Art History.
- The Art Story. (2024). “Max Ernst and the Invention of Grattage.” TheArtStory Movement Overview.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2021). “Max Ernst: Fever Visions and Texture.” The Met Surrealism Beyond Borders Exhibition.
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