Bubblewrap Injection Painting

In this Instructable I will show you how I made a Bradley Hart style bubble wrap painting.

The process took about 2 weeks of preparation and around two months of injecting.

For my size (82x 100cm) the cost was about 160€ for paint, 30€ for syringes and ~40€ for minor stuff.

For years I was always amazed by Tom Sachs style and approach to art/ life in general so I decided to make this painting of him with the shoe from his space program using/inspired by the technique and workflow of Bradley Hart. Hart is an amazing and very inspiring artist. I think its always fascinating if someone manages to take something completely out of context and create new amazing stuff. I wanted to try this technique forever so this was the perfect opportunity.

Since l'm a student and can't afford neither a work by Tom Sachs nor Hart I tried to combine my interest in both.

To start we need

This is a (hopefully complete) list of all materials used in the process

Bubblewrap:

I used offset wrap with a bubble distance of 1cm top to top. Offset meaning that the rows are offset by 0.5 bubbles in each row so theres less space in between. Use bubblewrap with individual bubbles! Theres some where the bubbles are connected, that woun't work.

If I could redo it I would choose smaller and tighter bubbles.

Paint:

Hart uses Acrilic paint so thats what I used. If you are on a budget I imagine wall paint should be fine too, I used about 8L so it adds up

Syringes:

I found that 20ml syringes on aliexpress. Those are a great balance between ease of handling and volume. To estimate the total amount take 2.5 -3x the number of colours. They will clog, dry out and break. Besides that I had 2-3 syringes for main colours since I used them so much.

Also I was surprised that some household tasks got exponentially easiest when you have excess syringes laying around. Oiling intricate kitchen appliances, injecting vodka into watermelons and so on. So excess isn't too bad.

If I were to do it again I would use slightly bigger ones for main colours so I don't have to refill so often.

Needles:

Basically use the biggest ones you have access to. The smaller the Gauge the bigger the diameter.

I found 16G needles on Aliexpress and those were great, tried 20G but they barely let the paint through.

The bigger ones were not poiny but simply tubes and didn't work. Smaller ones needed too much pressure and were a pain. Needles are cheap so try out what works for you and your paint in your climate conditions.

Wood:

There are easier ways to stretch the bubblewrap like strings and so on but since this will take time and I wanted it stable I built a frame. Simply 4 pieces of board I had laying around screwed together with steel angles. Mine was around 2x1.5m which was great.

For the frame I used:

2x: 200x15x2cm

2x: 150x15x2cm

For the feet:

2x: 150x10x10

For the box:

3x: 150x20x1.5cm

2x: 20x20x2cm

For fixing the bubblewrap

1x: 150x10x2cm

Screwed that on top to clamp the bubblewrap against the frame. This gets heavy so distribute the weight evenly across the length.

Extra stuff and Tools:

- Drill with bits and drills

- Saw, I used a miter saw. Hand saw will work

- Big drill for the syringe holes, I used a 20mm forstner

- 4 steel angles

- screws

- rope

- Magnets

- Steel band or just something magnetic, I used 1x10cm flat steel

- Foam, I had about 3cm high foam left over from something? Don't need much, only for the endcaps of the syringes and around 2x 20x20cm for inside the box

- Something to protect the floor, ideally strong paper or cardboard

- Tape

Optional

-2 drive in nuts with >40mm long screws

For the picture I reduced it to 15 colors in photoshop (there are some ways to do it, either posterize it or save for web and limit the colours while exporting). Find out how many you need and what looks good. Less is of course better.

Set the resolution for 1p/cm, size it to your final size, mirror it and print it twice. Number the colours and print a 3x15 grid with numbers in the top row, the colour sample in the middle and an empty bottom row to help mixing later. Use that colour guide for mixing and later as helper for injecting the colours.

I'm very bad at mixing colours so I tried to get the ratios before mixing. Surprisingly this was extremely hard and (for me) not possible. Why is there no website/app for this? Can't be that hard since you know the hex codes?

That didn't work so I asked my amazing girlfriend for help (tbh she basically did it alone I was standing there holding stuff). Mix the colours one by one, when it looks alright paint the little square beneath the colour sample and wait for it to dry. Do that until it looks good.

Pack them airtight, I found that ziplock bags are great, in the end I used the big ones from ikea. Cut off a corner to fill the syringes and closed it with those small plasticbag clamps.

To estimate the amount of paint you need I used the magic selector in Photoshop to see how many pixels I have from each colour. Multiplied that by the amount of paint in each bubble and added 20%. For me it was ~1g in each bubble, but try it out.

Frame:

With the angles screw the 200 and 150cm boards together to create a frame. On the bottom screw on the 150cm legs so it stands up straight with the legs laying on the floor.

Stretching rope in an X on the back is a great way to give it strength and make it rigid. You cound stretch rope from the feet over the frame and back to the feet in a triangle to give it strength. The box also helps there immensely.

Box:

An extra step what will save you so much time and make the experience much better is the box you see screwed in the middle of the frame. I used 3 pieces of old flooring. This gives you a great workspace and place for all the needles

1) Screw the boards on 3 sides of the 20x20cm blocks to create a U shaped box.

2) Drill holes for the syringes, for my motive 3x3 holes on each side were plenty

3) tape foam beneath the holes for the needles to stick in

4) To fix the box into the frame you have 2 options.

4A) Screw it in from the side

or

4B) Make it height adjustable for that:

4B1) Drill a hole through the side of the box and on 3-4 heights along the frame.

4B2) put a drive in nut inside the box

4B3) now you can screw the box through the holes in the frame

I did B) and it was great, everything there when you need it. Very comfortable and ergonomic, the design is very human.

1) Hang the bubblewrap over the frame so that in hangs straight. Thats important!!!

The rows have to come down straight on a vertical axis

2) place the extra board over the bubblewrap on top and screw it on. This way you clamp it on the frame, preventing it from rips and tears. Tape loops of tape on the other 3 sides and strech it to the frame. Not too hard tho, bubblewrap isn't that strong!

3) prepare the syringes, I numbered them on the top by melting the numbers with a soldering iron and filled with black acrylic paint. To prevent them vom drying out I took strips of foam, folded it and wrapped them very tight in tape. This worked surprisingly well!

Now just fill them with paint

4) screw in the box and fill it with the syringes. Inside you could put extra needles, syringes, toilet paper, snacks,...

5) mount the picture behind the bubblewrap at the top with tape. Be careful that theres enough space between the edge of the image and the tape, you can't remove tape from bubblewrap so it has to be enough space that its behind the frame when you mount it (>10cm). When it's hanging you can hold the metal strips on the picture and fix it with magnets from the other side. So it won't flop around and shift between colours.

You're going to inject from the back so the bubbles are against the picture. Take care that the edge of the picture is parallel to the bubble rows.

6) hang the other poster amd colour guide next to your frame so you see there you are and to check for colours. I had one hanging and one to hold against the picture that was great.

In order to produce art with bubbles you need to get to know the bubble, understand the physics of the bubble, and work with the bubble.

In austria we have a song about something completely different but I'll make a analogy here.

The bubble has feelings, it is a part of you, dont put it on chairs, it has an opinion. The bubble needs some movement so give it what it needs.

You might guessed it, like most stuff here this songs about asses. We took it to the song contest and its an icon here (in some places at least) so there's that.

Ok enough about that

Find your workflow and what works for you.

Here's what I did:

If you inject something into the bubble you have to get rid of the air inside. If you inject too fast or the hole is too small the air will press most of the paint out.

To compensate that I injected down at an angle (like -30/45°) and before pushing the paint in I pulled the needle down a few mm to create a slot, so it pushed the paint from the bottom up. That way the air could escape from the top. Worked alright but find out what suits you.

Start at the bottom and work in rows upwards. Some paint will spill out but you want that actually. It only shouldn't bee too much, some has to stay in the bubble. Just pay attention that the flowing paint doesn't cover uninjected bubbles so you don't miss any. Compare the colours to the second sample poster and colour chart so you don't get lost.

Adjust the magnets and box as you work your way up.

When you finish for the day you pierce syringes in the tape wrapped foam so it won't dry out.

Continue until you have no bubbles left.

I always worked for a few hours every few days so the run down paint already dried once I continued injecting. Once you are done with your painting I would suggest letting it dry at least until the back (run down paint) is fully dry and the bubbles are kind of hard. Around 2 weeks is a good point to check on them. If you have left over paint you can lay the painting on the floor now and spread it on the back. If you have holes (bubblewrap peeking through or a thin layer) you should put more paint on to get an even layer. Let that dry.

Once its mostly dry (not too early or it will rip, you can try it and it it feels wet or going to rip let it dry or paint over it a few times to make it thicker) you can peel the run down paint off to reveal the full bubble effect and create an abstract mirror (I have to admit that I like it at least as much as the bubbles..).

I lightly stretched the bubblewrap over a diy frame, put duct tape on the edges and stapled it throughthe tape on the frame. The tape prevents the bubblewrap from tearing so I highly recommend it. Around that frame I built a shadow gap frame ("Schattenfugenrahmen" in german, I think its that one) out of plywood with fixed with Philips screws. Both are a Tom Sachs specific option, I don't agree with the screws but for full effect I had to include them (it won't fail because of me I guess). I'll write a love letter to plywood any day but with all due respect Torx > Phillips, sorry Tom.

Don't look too close on the frame anyway, due to the lack of propper tools (and at this point patience) I had to improvise there.

For the abstract mirror I measured it and glued it on a board with construction adhesive. The side which was on the bubblewrap visible, there you have an amazing abstract mirror image. This might not be the best option but I needed something with volume to get in all the high and low spots. After letting it dry I trimmed it down and injected left over paint into empty airpockets and holes.

To hang it I drilled a hole in the middle around 20cm below the top, halfway through the board and screwed on a small metal plate. That created a lip where a square bent hook (idk, that L shaped screw) can hold into without slipping off.

I posted the final products on reddit and got the amazing suggestion to cover the abstract painting with acrilic medium to protect it.

Reddit user @10erJohnny suggested this (https://www.dickblick.com/items/liquitex-gel-medium-matte-8-oz-jar/). Never heard of the stuff but great idea, makes sense.