Introducing Aluminium Tape
1. What is it?
Aluminium tape is thin aluminium foil with a self-adhesive backing. It is used in the construction industry, mostly by heating engineers to seal ducting, you may also find it covering the joins between insulation panels.
It is made in a range of thicknesses, the common one is 0.03mm, which is fine for our purposes, but thicker grades are available. The tape comes in differing widths; generally, 4.5cm 7.5cm and 10cm. DIY tip: You can try making your own by sticking double-sided tape onto ordinary kitchen foil, this produces lovely wrinkles but the builders tape is better for smooth textures.2. Why is Aluminium Tape so great for printmaking?
- It sticks to anything (as long as the surface is not wet or dusty)
- As it is self-adhesive it’s quick and clean to use
- Aluminium is flexible – it moulds round fine shapes, or wrinkles up beautifully
- It is soft and can easily be scratched or embossed (see the next post)
- The surface is very shiny so produces bright white tones with intaglio inking
- For crisp graphic shapes use scissors or a knife to cut, alternatively simply tear it for more organic lines.
- No sealing is necessary – as soon as it is stuck down you can print it.By now you are probably thinking ‘I must get this wonderful stuff right now!”…..
3. Where can I get Aluminium Tape?
You will find it in Diy shops or builders merchants. Occasionally Poundland have it in – if you spot it here stock up on it. As usual B&Q is my main source, they sell rolls 7.5mm wide, (a big roll is about £10). For the wider 10cm tape I went to Idenden on lineLets make printing plates!
Start with a base plate, this can be a piece of card, thin wood, plastic, acetate etc. Anything strong enough to withstand the pressure of the press will do. The plate making technique is so quick I would suggest making a series of little test plates to try out different textures. Here are some ideas to help get you started:Wrinkle it
Peel the backing paper off one corner of the tape. If you remove all the backing paper the tape can quickly roll up and stick to itself!
A handy tip is to poke a pin or needle at an angle along the edge to separate the backing paper from the sticky tape.
Press the sticky edge down onto your plate. As you gradually remove the backing twist and wrinkle the tape while pressing it down.
Try to avoid big flappy wrinkles because the ink will get trapped under these – if this happens cut the excess foil off with a knife. Before you ink it up, run the plate through the press to squash the foil down well.Encapsulate things under it
Simply arrange your textures on the plate, there’s no need to glue them down as the aluminium tape will fix them in place.
Leaves work particularly well; the examples below also include textured wallpaper and fabric.
Let your curiosity off the leash and try using whatever is lying around.No printing press?
If you haven’t got a printing press you can still use this technique; make your printing plates using textures and aluminium tape and press it down well to ensure the textures are showing clearly. Lay a sheet of thin paper over the plate, then take a rubbing using wax crayons or an inky roller – no press needed! This is also a great activity for children or community groups.Sandpaper
Naked sandpaper is hard to ink up (see the post on carborundum) but if you cover it with aluminium tape you will find lots of interesting things become possible……The rough texture of the sand paper will hold ink, but the smooth surface of the aluminium tape means you can easily wipe ink off producing highlights.
This is your chance to play with mono printing techniques, rubbing ink on and removing it to create 3d effects with light and shadows.
This plate is made from a circle of sandpaper laid onto unsealed mount board, with a square of aluminium tape stuck over it. If you treat it like a relief plate and roll over the intaglio inked image, the little grains in the sandpaper will pick up the relief ink and show as a sprinkling of dots in a contrasting colour. They appear to float in front of the background texture. In this example the relief layer is orange.Intaglio with Relief printing
I used this technique in my ‘conference pears’ print as I thought the effect was very like pear skin. The pear shapes are cut from coarse carborundum paper with aluminium foil stuck on top.The plate is inked as intaglio with green ink, which is wiped off to create highlights. Rolling over with light brown ink reveals the fine dotty texture of the carborundum surface.
Layer it
Extra layers of tape will gradually smooth the texture out producing different amounts of detail. The edges of the tape will catch ink and show as fine lines; cut or tear the tape to get different types of line. You can spot this on the pears where the tape wasn’t wide enough to cover the whole shape.Experiment with inking
Viscosity, relief, intaglio and mono printing all work well with these aluminium plates.
As the surface is smooth with raised areas viscosity printing is a particularly good method to use.
Irritatingly the plates often look better than the prints! The shiny foil reflects light through the ink so the plates have a beautiful glow. Allow plenty of time for the inks to dry if you want to preserve this effect.Add highlights to your plates
Sometimes your collagraph plates may be full of lovely texture but lacking in tone. If you have a finished plate and you want more light areas (ie smooth textures) in the design, then aluminium tape is the answer. Stick it on the plate and run through the press before you print it. The tape will add smooth texture while still revealing the contours of your collagraph plate underneath. This is a handy remedial technique you can use mid printing; if the plate is already inky, clean off as much of the greasy ink as possible and the tape will stick to it.I hope this will be the beginning of your beautiful relationship with aluminium tape.
I always have it by me, a bit like adding salt to your soup, aluminium tape makes a printmakers life even more interesting!
Hi there Emily – I had come across an artist using this tape but this post of yours is INSPIRATIONAL……………I really like that it can be used on eg a leaf. A friend of mine is currently doing a botanic project so I’m going to send her a link to this. I noticed they also have something called copper tape (I think it was for preventing slugs on garden plants)….Have you ever tried that. Mind you it was a bit more expensive. Thanks as always for sharing. Aine
Hi Aine, I have seen the copper tape but as you said it is more expensive, I think it may also be a bit thicker but I haven’t tried it – let me know if you give it a go
Brilliant. I must try that tape. Love your work.
Janet
Thanks Janet, I am glad it has inspired you; let me know what you do with the technique….
Hi Emily! I love your ‘lessons’! I have some alu tape and had thought of taking it with XCut and drypoint card (which neads no sealing for cut’n’peel), to do some en plein aire(sp?) with caligo and babywipes from the back of the car, somewhere! Warmer weather perhaps. I love the ideas here and will try in my shed. Something I’ve been pondering lately is a method of truely ‘marblising’ card plate, either the whole thing or to be cut or torn to make a stick-on element. Floating pva on thickened water, stir and sprinkle with carborundum, lay on paper (alum coated?), to be stuck on card when dry. That’s as far as i’ve got in my ‘thought experiment’, but it’s too complex. any thoughts? Heather (Mrs AR)
Hi Heather
Printing outdoors is great – have you seen Anita Reynolds work? she does great mono prints from a converted van in Devon. Probably wise to wait for a bit more warmth though.
I am also a fan of marbling, and experimented with making plates by floating household gloss paint on water and lowering an acetate plate onto it. It took a while to dry but was printable. It may be easier to use marbled paper and collage it into your print as chine colle?
Let me know if you discover a good way of doing it and it could form a blog post…..
It must be something in the air! I coincidentally spent yesterday blowing bubbles with acrylic paint and carborundum, prompted to make a plate from my marbling work a few days ago. Needless to say, still very much a work in progress….but balanced by using some aluminium tape to good effect on an existing plate, thanks so much for this idea Emily, it came just at the right time.
How wonderful to think of curious printmakers everywhere playing around and doing crazy things like blowing bubbles with acrylic and carborundum! I am glad the aluminium tape was helpful….
Hello!
I loved the idea and thank you for sharing it!
We tried it last week – but we found that we struggled how to ink the plates – when we had very small and fragile structures under the tape we were not quite able to get any results.
Rolling with a brayer did not really work.
Any recommendations for us?
Would be very appreciated!
Thanks
Katrin
Hi Katrin,
It is important to run the new plate through the press before inking up to make sure the foil is well squashed down round your textures.
If you use quite a hard brayer (or press lightly with a soft one) and stiff ink it should pick up the textures. Also make sure you are using thick damp paper as you always get a better print.
Inking up as intaglio does need a bit of practice, and generally is easier if you have quite a lot of close textures, large flat areas will just wipe clean if you are not careful.
Don’t give up – I hope you have better luck next time….
Thank you for sharing your process. I have recently started playing with this tape, so your suggestions are appreciated. I wonder though if you seal the mount board around the tape as in the circle one, as you have extended ink to edges. Thank you Jan
Hi Jan
I don’t seal the bare mount board – just ink it up and print as it is. I would seal it with shellac if I have put any pva on it though, as the glue can stick to the paper in the press if it is not sealed.
The only thing with unsealed mount board is not to clean it up with white spirit as this could seep under your tape and make it come off the plate, actually I don’t even clean the plates – just ink them up again and enjoy the colours mixing a bit!
Emily
Wow thank you for sharing!
first time on this site, great ideas, thanks
Thanks Thea – I hope you find more posts to inspire you!