Homemade Texture Rubbing Plates

The Art Studio has a long history of offering texture rubbing plates to add visual texture to art work. We’ve used them to add interest to collage cats and birds, and in at least a few other collage projects. Doing texture rubbings with young children can be a bonding experience because they sometimes need another hand or two to help them!

We love the idea of collecting rubbings from natural and manmade surfaces wherever they can be found, but sometimes that’s not practical. That’s why the Art Studio has a large collection of both homemade and commercially made texture rubbing plates.

We make our plates by gluing low-relief objects onto thin pieces of cardboard or chipboard. Our boards, pictured, are discards from a printer that we first used as painting blotters, and then cut down to about 5”x7”.  

The glue we use to adhere objects to the boards depends on what the objects are made from. White tacky glue works for paper and fabrics. Non-porous materials such as metal and plastic need something stronger. Hot glue sometimes works, but epoxy or something like Surebonder 9001 High Strength Adhesive are needed for a long-lasting durable bond. Texture plates that will be around young children who still put small objects in their mouths need a durable bond. Be sure to read the instructions and safety warnings on the epoxy type of of adhesives.

We own a variety of commercially-available plastic rubbing plates including the Texture Rubbing Plates and the Optical Illusions Rubbing Plates from Nasco. We appreciate that they can be washed, but the ones we’ve made in the Art Studio have a little extra love in them and inspire our guests to make their own at home. 

We avoid purchasing texture plates with images of objects or animals. Open-ended patterns and textures are can be turned into any kind of picture,  making them a better investment than representational images for nurturing creativity and imagination.

If you are inspired by this batch of homemade texture rubbing plates, check out how we made rubbing plates with natural materials!

Happy Creating!