Often, when I want to leave a nice white border around my work I’ll tape it over with masking tape, and remove it after I’m done. However, since I work only when I have time and feel inspired, much of my artwork lies untouched for weeks or sometimes months at a time. This becomes a serious problem if the work has masking tape on it, since the glue from the tape will transfer on to the work or dry up all together if it is left on too long. The borders of the artwork then become covered in sticky and (when dry) yellowish gunk, ruining the work.
This is indeed what happened with one of my most recent works, one which I otherwise quite like. Now the problem is how to remove the adhesive from the borders without damaging the rest of the piece… Simply scraping or rubbing the adhesive doesn’t work. Nor does trying to get the adhesive to stick to some paper pressed on to it and pulling it off. And I’m afraid of dissolving the media and ruining the work if I use any kind of sticker-removing solvent on the glue.
Fortunately, I happened upon Pressure-Sensitive Tape and Techniques for its Removal from Paper, a quite comprehensive article that recommends testing out a number of (toxic) solvents to see which one dissolves the adhesive best while leaving the work unmolested, and details a number of methods for soaking or sucking the adhesive out of the work.
So, I am currently using my drafing board as a gunea pig, since it also had a lot of adhesive stuck to it. And I’m also testing various solvents on some of the media on scrap paper. Unfortunately, right when disaster struck it started to rain, and it’s supposed to rain for the next four days. So I can’t let the solvent evaporate in the sun, and I can’t use the solvent indoors. Meanwhile the adhesive left over from the masking tape is slowly drying on my work, making it that much more challenging to remove.
In the future I’ll be using the blue Scotch brand tape, which is supposed to leave less adhesive residue than regular masking tape.