A new day, a new beginner’s mistake! This time from the printing section! This mistake mainly affects those who print with traditional lino, those gray blocks with the jute fiber on the back.

The mistake: You press the lino block onto the paper like a stamp. The order is wrong – the correct order is to put the paper on the block. So block on the bottom, paper on the top! The difference is that you have much more control over your print result. Lino blocks are comparatively inflexible to a stamp made of a rubber material.

As a result of this mistake, your print will probably be missing ink in many places, because you can’t see where more pressure needs to be built up.

If you lay the lino block flat on the table and place the paper on top of it, you can lift the paper in some places during the printing process and see how it is doing. Is there still ink missing? Then either more pressure is needed or more ink! With a little practice, you can easily re-roll the ink. I show you all this in detail in my course. Excellent, opaque and even prints are the goal and we can achieve that together!

Especially when you print without a press, it is even more annoying when a print fails because you have put so much more effort and time into it. Let me show you how we can save prints. Do you want to? Then I would be happy if you join me!

Still unsure which tools and products you need for your lino printing starter kit? Just download my guide with product recommendations for linocut beginners – on 6 pages I list all the materials and tools I need to make my colorful prints – and you can do it too!