Texture is the visual and tactile quality of surfaces due to an object's material structure. There are natural and artificial textures, as well as tactile and visual textures. Tactile textures can be felt through touch and have 3D relief, while visual textures are 2D. Artists use different techniques to create textures, such as frottage by rubbing a drawing tool on paper placed over a rough surface, spattering by randomly dropping paint onto paper with a brush, and printing by coating a rough surface with paint and pressing it onto paper.

1. BASIC
ELEMENTS
OF VISUAL
LANGUAGE

2. TEXTURE

3. 1.Definition

4. Texture is the visual and
tactile quality of surfaces
due to the material structure
of the object.
It can transmit different
visual and tactile sensations.
Artists use textures as
another plastic element to
reach more expressivity in
their works.

5. 2.Types of
textures according
to their origin

6. •NATURAL
TEXTURES:
those that can be
found in nature.
•ARTIFICIAL
TEXTURES:
those manually or
mechanically
elaborated by man.

7. 2.Types of
textures according
to their dimension

8. TACTILE TEXTURES:
•We can perceive them
through the sense of
touch. They have the
appearance of a three-
dimensional relief.
•In plastic representation
- painting or sculpture-,
we can perceive a lot of
tactile effects combining
different materials or
making surfaces with the
relief we want.

9. VISUAL TEXTURES:
•We perceive visual
textures only with our
sight. They are strictly
two-dimensional.
•We also call them
graphic textures,
because they are
photographs or
representations on paper
or on other materials.

10. 3. Techniques
for creating
textures

11. Frottage
Frottage is a technique
that creates different
textures by rubbing a
drawing tool (graphite
pencil, charcoal or
coloured pencil) on to a
sheet of paper placed
on top of a rough
surface.

12. Spattering
The spattering
technique involves
covering the paper
randomly in drops of
paint. We can do this
by using a brush that
has been dipped in
paint.

13. Printing
The printing technique
consists of using paint
to coat a surface,
usually a rough one
(finger, sponge, cork,
wood, etc.) and
printing this surface on
to the sheet of paper.
This action can be
repeated again and
again.

14. Collage
The collage technique
involves sticking
different elements
(paper, newspaper,
photographs, pieces of
fabric, etc..) on to a
surface in order to
form an image.

15. Scratchboarding
It is usually done with
waxed colours and it
consists on giving two
coats of colours to the
media (paper, wood,
etc.) being the second
one darker. So when
scratching over the
first layer the second
one shows up.

16. Exercises