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Must haves are paper, brayers, a mixing pad, an object to apply pressure, painting knives and inks.

If you use the ink I recommend, you don’t need much for cleaning. A plastic box with cold water, a few old dish towels, a sponge, gloves and soap.

Please never hold the linoleum block under running water! As soon as the jute fibers on the back get wet, the block will warp and be ruined. Therefore, a small plastic box that you fill 1/3 full with water will do. I have linked the cleaning process in this article!

And that’s it for the start! I do not own much more beyond that. Okay, I have accumulated more than five inks and three carving tools over time, but this list gives a very good insight into what you might need in the beginning. Just download my PDF for a quick overview. It contains all the products as a handy list, if you want to put together your own starter kit. I’ll tell you where to get all the products in this blog article.

Here too, my credo is – please do not save money at the wrong end! With three different blade sizes you can already cover a lot of functions and are wonderful for a starter set. I used this interchangeable blade set during my time at university. A horror! Those in combination with a hard, old linoleum block spoil your fun right away. Because actually, carving can be meditative and relaxing.

Sure, carving is physically demanding – but the difference between a really sharp tool and a blade that gets dull after a short time – is huge! Sharp blades are also much safer for beginners, because you won’t slip as quickly as with dull blades! Mastering your tools and having a feel for them is also paramount for safe work – yet the “cheap carving tools” require much more control and experience than the high quality blades.

My first baren was not really suitable for my project. You can use the felt baren for small stamp motifs for sure, but it’s nothing for lino printing. You can’t build up the pressure you need with it. Instead, the Japanese baren has been working wonderfully for almost 4 years now! You only make the first initial pressing with it and then switch to a wooden spoon, but it’s still part of the routine!

Fancy watercolor paper or heavy handmade paper with 300 gsm are eye-catchers! They feel luxurious and convey a certain value. However, these papers are not necessarily recommended for beginners and printing by hand. For a homogeneous print result, you need much more pressure and time. In contrast, papers in the 130-180 gsm range are much easier to print on, especially if it has little or no texture. My favorite paper comes from the print shop, 160 gsm, paper type “Design Offset White”. Similar papers can be found under the name “Cartridge”. Paper is certainly a matter of taste and also depends on your design. Monochrome floral designs can be perfected with a handmade paper. For beginners, I would advise choosing a paper that is easy to print on and then playing around as you gain experience.

If you are not sure whether you want to stick with a hobby permanently, it is understandable that you want to save money. Good inks and tools can be resold.

If you already work with one of these products and get along with them well – all the better! I don’t want to say, that they don’t work at all! This might be personal experience and maybe I gave up on them too quickly. But all the products shown were game changers for me so I don’t want to withhold them from you. 😊

If you want to know which products can be useful for a lino printing beginner, download my PDF tool list! And if you want to get really serious about this hobby and make your first multicolor lino printing with the help of step by step instructions that are guaranteed to be frustration free, my online course is certainly interesting for you 🥳.

In the UK, I like to buy from www.jacksonsart.com* or www.handprinted.co.uk – I also buy the metallic inks from Cranfield there, as I haven’t discovered them in Germany yet. You can also check out amazon – in Germany the selection there is rather poor but in other countries this could be a good source.

Specific links to the products I use:

Inks: Cranfield Caligo Safe Wash *
Cutting Tools: Pfeil *
Rollers: Speedball Soft Rubber Roller *
Brayer: Japanese Bamboo Baren *
Sharpening: Flexcut Slip Strop *

Of course, you don’t have to buy the same products that I present to you. These are always personal recommendations based on my experience, which is why I highlight them. If you can’t find them at all in your area, and you can’t import them inexpensively, see what’s available to you. Because as with any hobby, it will probably not remain with a one-time order of products and you don’t want to go through a difficult ordering process with long shipping times again and again.

I clean all my devices at my work table. Put the block on an old cloth, then the back side is protected – because this should not get wet under any circumstances. Otherwise, the burlap incorporated on the back will cause the block to warp, and that can hardly be undone and is really a hindrance for future prints!

Now I get some fresh water in a (by now very dirty) small plastic box, dip a dishwashing sponge into it and wring it out again. Then I put a dash of dishwashing liquid on it, spread that on the sponge until it gets foamy. You can dissolve the ink on the lino block, mixing plate and roller beforehand with a little water from the spray bottle. Then you just rub the sponge over the block and all the ink comes off. Wipe it off and let it dry, done. It really is that simple. The blocks will no longer become completely clean, but that doesn’t matter, as long as the printing surface is!

Another option are “pinch rollers” – these look very similar to the ink rollers and can also be used for this purpose. They are not my personal preference, cause you can’t build up the necessary pressure with these alone. I also find these less handy and user-friendly in comparison to the barens.

In the summer of 2018 I started with lino printing. This black and white image of a Viking woman was basically my first girl and the beginning of a long series! I named her Lagertha, because I was so impressed by the same-named protagonist in the series “Vikings”.

Funny that I depicted my first motif right away “without eyes” or with closed eyes – because I was afraid that a too “rigid” expression could look lifeless. I eventually made this original thought a “trademark”, but rather out of necessity. Nevertheless, I would not want to change it any more!

The snake and skull print was my first experiment of layering colors. I had two blocks and two designs that belonged to each other. Well, who recognizes the theme? It’s a bit abstract I know, haha – it’s “The Dark Mark” from Harry Potter! And I was one step closer to multi color printing as I do today.

Then I created the picture with the cicadas and the peonies – I understood how important colors are to me and how much you can change the expression of a picture based on the colors.

In October 2018 I designed the first girl that was formative for my work today! THIS was absolutely what I wanted to do in linocut! I was totally hyped by the result and drew the next design right away. And the next and the next. In the process, I put more and more symbolism into the individual elements. Well, and the rest is history. I’m so excited to see if my work in 3 years will still look like it does today or if my style will change again.

Abstract shapes have something very timeless, classic. Here, the colors and their harmony with each other play an important role. But also the proportions and the arrangement of the forms make the charm of this style. A motif can express lightness or heaviness, it can appear balanced by a symmetrical arrangement of elements or dynamic if you work with an asymmetry. This is a very beginner-friendly style for anyone who wants to learn lino printing.

The results are sure to succeed, as carving the shapes is easy even for the inexperienced. In addition, the shapes can be arranged in any way each time, which invites experimentation.

A style that has been particularly trendy for a few years now – and with good reason! You can hardly get enough of landscapes. Our choice of color decides whether the landscape is rather in a hot place or whether a cool fjord is part of the picture. If you love traveling, you can perfectly express this passion in your pictures.

In principle, the pictures are always structured quite similarly. We can depict hills or dunes by building up the lower half of the picture in a wave-like manner. A sun or a moon on the horizon, done! This style leaves quite a lot of room for individuality.

A tool that either makes your work much easier or much more difficult. Here I would not save money and advise to rather reach for the more expensive knives that professionals also use. Because in the beginning 3 different sizes are quite enough! The cheap set blades, however, blunt very quickly and often can not be sharpened. The result: the blade slips easily, which significantly increases the risk of injury.

I find a v-shaped blade very useful for line work. My choice would be a medium size, because with little pressure you can carve fine lines and with more pressure you can carve deeper grooves! A very wide and flat blade is best for carving out larger areas, such as backgrounds. Third, you can do little wrong with a wide u-shaped blade.

Oil-based or water-based? My advice: Always oil-based – but they should be washable! Because indeed, there are oil-based inks for which you need special cleaners. But also there are oil-based inks that you can clean very easily with water and dishwashing detergent – it works like a dream! “Caligo Safe Wash Relief Inks” from the British company Cranfield Colours belong in this category and they are the hot tip for anyone who wants to work with linoleum.

The disadvantage of water-based inks is mainly the processing time, because the water component dries very quickly. So if you want to make a lot of prints of a design, you quickly get frustrated because the mixed ink dries on the roller and the lino block which negatively affects the print result. With oil-based inks, on the other hand, you can work for hours – of course, the print doesn’t dry immediately either, so you have to keep that in mind!

The print result also differs: that of a water-based ink feels a bit rough and looks matt, that of an oil-based ink silky soft and slightly glossy.

Traditional grey lino is my favorite, often found under the name “Battleship Grey”. Brown linoleum crumbles faster, and softcut or vinyl panels cut differently. Personally, these alternatives simply lack the feel of “real” linoleum – the smell and feel matter to me.

Two things that are not worth saving on: ink and carving tools. They make the massive difference between fun and frustration later on. On the other hand, you can compare prices for paper, ink rollers and printing tools. When it comes to lino blocks, there’s not that much difference price-wise – the combination of sharp carving tools and traditional grey lino blocks is ideal I think.