The humble Rubbing

The Humble Rubbing © Corban Estate Arts Centre 2020

THE HUMBLE RUBBING 2 CEAC.ORG.NZ Kia ora extended Corban’s family the following is some creative inspiration provided by our Corban’s school education team. At this very unusual time we have endeavoured to provide you with options for creative development that you can do together or alone at home with limited materials. The workshops are open to all age groups from young children to adults. Just take the parts that appeal to you and feel free to extend on them and add your own inspiration to the mix.

CONTENTS 3 MATERIALS REQUIRED 4 CREATING A CHARACTER 5 CREATING YOUR STORY 6 CREATING A VISUAL SOUNDCAPE 7

4 THE HUMBLE RUBBING Jean Stewart (2020). Materials required Here is my Dictionary of Marks that I made You need a pencil or crayon, paper (old unused schoolbooks are a good at my house. source of paper) A Rubbing is made when you place a piece of paper over a textured surface and then use a pencil or crayon to rub over the paper. The texture will magically appear on the paper as you go. A great starting point is to create a Dictionary of Marks. To create a mark dictionary, search out and find different textures from around your house. Make a rubbing of each texture onto a different area on a piece of paper. It might be useful to write down where you found them as you will want to go back to them later on. The Dictionary of Marks will be very useful to look back at as we move on to more complicated ways of making art with rubbings. Following are two separate activities that you can do with rubbings feel free to try either one of them or both or else just make up your own thing. Remember to have fun and be inventive. CEAC.ORG.NZ

5 Creating a character Here is an example, Kiwi with a ruffled up Another neat thing you can do with rubbings is to cut out shapes from coat and wearing his cardboard and make rubbings of these shapes. Old food packaging is potae. a good source of cardboard for this it doesn’t matter what is printed on the cardboard as it is only the cut out shape that will show in the rubbing. This is your opportunity to think of your own character that you want to develop a story around. Perhaps a super hero or an insect perhaps a tooth fairy or a Taniwha you can choose whatever character you feel like. And you don’t have to stick to one create as many as you need. Draw an outline of your character onto the card and then use scissors to cut out the shape.

6 THE HUMBLE RUBBING Jean Stewart (2020). Creating your story Here’s my story above about the moonlit Now that you have your character or characters you can rub them into a night that Kiwi found story. By creating a series of drawings you can change your arrangement his magic Potae. in each rubbing to show what is happening. In the same way that comic’s communicate. Be inventive you could have moving parts or different outfits. Think about the environment too that surrounds your character. Here’s a hint if you want to keep areas white put the cardboard on top of your paper hold it down and carefully rub around it. Have fun be creative and if you want to share your discoveries you can do so here...... we would love to see what you come up with CEAC.ORG.NZ

Jean Stewart (2020). 7 Creating a visual soundcape Have you noticed how the sounds around us have changed since we have all been at home in our bubbles? For me where I live in the Waitakere Rangers it has been very quiet. There are no more car noises and hardly any aeroplanes flying over head. Now in this new quietness there are a whole lot of other sounds that I am starting to hear. What are the sounds around your house? In this exercise we are going to turn sounds into marks on paper. You might want to look again at your dictionary of marks to remind yourself what you have available. You can also cut shapes out of cardboard to resemble the sounds you hear. For example hearing the sound of a small bird tweeting I cut out small sharp pieces of card and put them altogether to rub over. To Begin find a place where you won’t be interrupted close your eyes and focus on the sounds you hear. Spend some time doing this until you can focus on the sounds. Let your mind start to imagine the sounds as shapes or marks. Open your eyes and begin your soundscape rubbing. Remember you are making a soundscape which means lots of sounds together so you may need to return to your listening with eyes closed a few times through the process, to remember all the different sounds. Bit by bit record them all in your picture. This morning I woke up early and sat on my front deck to hear the dawn chorus, the sounds of all the birds waking up. Here is the soundscape rubbing I made after my listening

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