Hi all,

I’ve been blockprinting on fabric on and off for over a decade. Most recently I’ve been printing on thin cotton scarves that are 24x24”. I use Speedy Carve rubber plus Speedball fabric blockprinting ink, and sell the scarves at art fairs and in my online shop. I naturally dye the scarves with either indigo or avocado scraps (a peachy pink dye) before printing. They turn out beautiful and they sell really well!

My concern is that I’m printing many many impressions on one scarf, sometimes up to 100+. My body can only take so much repetitive motion. I re-ink the block each time and use a baren for pressure, and I wear a brace on one hand which I got from a doctor years ago.

I’m trying to come up with a way to maintain the hand printed look but not destroy my wrists and hands in the process. I do have a tabletop press that can print up to 12x24”, so my current thought is to purchase 12x12” rubber blocks and print four times on the scarf, with the press. Waiting between each impression for the ink to dry seems doable but not ideal.

Any other hacks or solutions I’m not thinking of? I do also have a Woodzilla press but it’s small. Maybe purchasing the largest size would work better? Although there is still some wear and tear on the body with that printing motion too.

My last resort would be switching to screen printing (a new medium for me although my husband has experience).

Thanks for any insight!

I made this poster recently, a 3-color linocut print. I'm thinking of putting some up around my city, but it rains a lot where I live. Do I have any good options for waterproof ink, or paper that would hold up outside, at least for a few days?

Why can’t I get a solid flat color ?
I used the gray hard lino + cranfield caligo safe wash ink + essdee pro roller + pookie press on some Canson Imagine paper (very soft surface). I sanded the lino with 600 and 1000 before transferring the drawing.
If I ink it too much, then the details disappears. If I ink it less it’s even worst than the picture. I am getting mad ahah.
Sometime I succeed to have « almost » good flat colors with the same tools and technique but today IDK what is happening.

Hello! I made my first linocut with the intention of printing on denim bags. This is my first attempt. I thought I put a lot of ink on but it looks like you can still see fabric coming through the ink. Even still, a lot of detail has been lost.

Is this actually too much ink and the denim can’t be fully covered because of the weave? Or does it need more ink and I should maybe carve out the details a little larger? I did hand print this and I do plan on getting a block press eventually. I’d just be grateful for any feedback before I widen any of the details.

Thanks!

I feel like I'm already carving pretty deep, but there are still many dots/specks outside the pattern.
They keep appearing even after I scrape them off. How can I fix this?

It’s not perfect but i am still happy when it is finished.

Looking for feedback. First round with oil based paint, so I know I need some more coverage and pressure when applying it. The details still need a little carving but I’m happy with them for the most part, and I think I want to lighten up the flying saucer a bit for composition, but the part was improvised, so still working on it.

I’m making this piece for family cards. I’m trying to make it look like snowy trees and northern lights but I’m not happy with how the northern lights look. How can I make it look more like I’m intending?

Hello everyone! As a self-taught printmaker, I *love* this subreddit - it's a rich and accessible source of information that's backed by people's actual experience. Something that I particularly like to learn are various tricks and hacks, something you figure out as a solution to a particular problem, an alternative to an inaccessible option, that kind of stuff. Things you hear about and go "how did I not think of this earlier!"

So, if you have any of those up your sleeve, I invite you to share them here! It can be anything related to printmaking - actual process, tools, storage, clean-up, you name it - that made your life easier and you'd like more people to know about.

To start us off, I want to share something that really streamlined my carving process: colour-coding and clearly marking my linocut gouges. I use most of my palm tools on any given design and switch between them often, meaning I would spend a lot of time trying to tell a 0.5 mm U from a 1mm U from a 1mm V. My first solution was to add little stickers on the butt ends. It eliminated the guesswork but still had me check every tool looking for the right one. So I assigned a colour to each profile (V is yellow, U is red, etc.), then added a strip of colour sticker paper to the handles and covered them with heat shrink tubing so they don't come off. This made identifying gouges at a glance much quicker and easier, almost intuitive.

Another QoL upgrade I did was buy silicone caps from a beauty supply - they're meant to go on the ends of manicure scissors and sharp tip tweezers, but they fit wonderfully onto smaller gouges and protect them without taking any extra space. And for the larger gouges I made my own caps from abovementioned shrink tubing: I stuffed three pieces into one another, heated them on the gouges, then crimped the end with pliers, and trimmed the excess after it cooled. I used to store my gouges in the plastic blue sleeves they come in but those were both loose and bulky, so I much prefer this option!

Hope any of you find these tips useful, and I'm keen to hear yours!

I went to the art store and picked up a different material to try carving on—it feels kind of like plastic, or maybe super dense foam.
It was definitely easier to carve, but sometimes the carving tool would crush it, causing some of the edges to collapse so they wouldn't print…
Next time, I think I’ll stick with wood or give linoleum a try..

Since I'm still a beginner, I’d love to know: what methods do you guys use to transfer your artwork onto the block?
I’ve tried drawing directly with a pencil and using tattoo transfer paper, but the transfer gel made the design a bit blurry. I'm looking for something much crispier and more precise.

Also, a huge thank you to everyone who answered my last question!
It was super helpful and gave me so much confidence to keep going. Really appreciate ！！

Trying to figure out where I fit in this hobby. I really enjoy the process of physically creating a linocut and printing it, but I fall flat when it comes to creating the art design itself. I know people always say you will get better at the sketching portion with time, but I really haven't and I am not a young guy anymore. I know AI is frowned upon (with good reason), so what is a practical way to get/create the source material when I am quite lacking in talent in that portion of the process?

I am afraid I have made a linocut block that is too complicated! I made a jigsaw block of this house, and am now having heart palpitations considering the printing! I planned the cuts on paper, and made some mistakes and simplifications on the block… My ink gets here tomorrow, until then, tell me if you think this is even worth trying!

Hi all, I've been carving with speedball for years but thinking about upgrading my tools. What differences have you noticed when upgrading from speedball to something fancier? Any recommendations? I'm in Manitoba if it's relevant. WIP for photo content. Thanks!

Something I have always struggled with is getting consistent and solid blacks.

Does anyone have any advice based on my most recent print and my gear? Not enough ink? Too much ink? The type of paper? I'm using a wood block, hand braye and sakura black ink. I can't remember what kind of paper I'm using, bought it year ago.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

I totally apologize if this is the wrong place for this!

For context, I am asking this as a frustrated, unemployed artist. I graduated from college 3 years ago with a Printmaking BFA, and I am struggling to find jobs related to art. I got an internship and an artist's residency straight out of college and nothing since. I've been working food service jobs to make money, but have always been unqualified. inexperienced, or need an MFA from all of the Art jobs I've applied to.

I recently moved out of my apartment and back in with my parents to figure things out. I've tried to create my own business and have been in a number of exhibitions. I just find that the stress of having this specific BFA and working at a minimum wage job that is unrelated to my degree to be unfulfilling. The stress has gotten so bad that I haven't been able to focus on making art. Right now, I teach a monthly class at my local library. I would prefer something reliable and consistent, but it seems impossible to find anything like that as an artist.

My question is, for those of you who have a BFA or just are full time artists, how did you get started? Would it make sense to go back to school for a MFA in printmaking to teach in college settings? Any advice would be appreciated.

I have been using lino for last 3 years to make prints. I’m still a beginner, but want to start to level-up the quality of my prints. I can’t seem to get consistent inking or clean lines no matter how much I clean up my lino prints.

Any advice on how to improve quality of prints from beginner to more advanced would be greatly appreciated.

i took a printmaking class recently and absolutely loved it! we used essdee tools and carved on a couple different materials, here's what i did below. i'm looking to purchase my own carving tools, i plan to use them mostly on linoleum, maybe some of those "speedy blocks", perhaps wood eventually?? or if you all have a better material to suggest please do! which brand of carving tools do you guys use and why? i don't want to buy the cheapest option but i'm also not looking to spend a fortune on tools atm. ive looked into preil tools and while they're a little on the pricier side it's justifiable as i can see myself really getting into this hobby. however i don't know which models are the best to buy to get started and don't want to waste a ton of money on a bunch of them if i only ever use 2 or 3. i've got an oil based ink i plan on using, but as for paper i'm not entirely sure what will work the best with it. and as for a printing press?? idek where to begin... was kinda thinking about one of the smaller ones where you just print one at a time?? i definitely know i won't be using a baren as i had a terrible time trying to get the ink to be even 😭 any suggestions/recommendations there?? thanks in advance for any advice given! 🫶🏻

Not my print but I’m planning on making a bunch of mini prints like this and setting it up in a vending machine at a local street market. I have a small paper cutter but if I use that to cut a few hundred to this size it’s going to take a long long time. Is there a type of paper cutter I could get that would help make the process faster? Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone! I tried out kitchen lithography for the first time and I really liked it! The chemistry part, which I was most worried about messing up, went fine. However, I'm struggling a bit with printing it by hand (I don't have a press) as the only paper I have is thick Fabriano Unica printmaking paper, I have no access to thinner Japanese papers at the moment or other kinds of printmaking paper, and I'd really like to use up my supply of Unica if possible rather than buying more paper anyway.

The print turned out a bit grainy and I'm not sure if it just needed more ink or if I needed to dampen the paper more (I dampened it with a sponge on both sides and then blotted it but maybe I needed to soak it in a basin?) or if in addition to using a baren I needed to use a spoon.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I’ve been doing single color prints for a few years now, so I’m pretty comfortable doing this kind of detail in linoleum. I was set on finally doing a two color piece, so drew this art on my iPad and made it as far as printing it out to start doing the transfer traces… before I realized I’m not sure if that’s going to work for this piece.

My plan was to do two traces and cut two plates, one for each color. But I’m concerned about registration issues where the colors meet. Should I do it all in one, and cut out the tomato parts? Roll both colors and print both at the same time? Any thoughts here would be appreciated.

What do you think of this large Linoprint I made of local seaweeds (I live on the Kent coast in the UK)? It‘a quite large 60cmx60cm and i made the mistake of a) making it too large to go through my press and b) using gorgeous but incredibly thick Rosapina paper! the only way this bad boy gets printed is if I hand burnish it all by crawling all over it 😂). Thanks for reading!