Tools and setup

Linocut and block printing are one craft under two names: you carve away what should stay white, roll ink onto what is left and press paper onto it. The kit is small. A block, a cutter with a V and a U blade, a tube of block printing ink, a brayer to roll it out, a smooth flat slab to roll it on, and paper. The equipment list sorts every item into needed now or later.

A boxed kit is the quickest way in, and its weak points are known: the paper is usually missing, the baren often is, and the ink is nearly always water based. Kits compared by contents shows what each box leaves out. For children, start with soft blocks or foam plates and a cutter with a hand guard, see tools for kids.

Set up two areas so ink never reaches clean paper: a carving side with a bench hook or non-slip mat, and an inking side with the slab, the brayer and the block. Keep the stack of paper on a third, clean spot. Then read the whole sequence once in how to lino print before the first cut.