I just tried reduction printing for the first time choosing lino as my medium. I used an artificial lino base: it’s some kind of plastic/rubber. I feel this is easier to cut than the traditional lino and it also lasts longer, although the latter is not a concern for reduction printing, because in reduction printing you carve away more and more of your design to create multiple layers for printing. So you end up with just the final layer of your design which on its own probably doesn’t make for a good print (at least not in my case!).
This is not a very difficult thing to try if you choose a design that you’re comfortable doing and you don’t choose to make a million layers. You’ll need:
* Paper and pencil or pen to design your print
* Carbon paper to transfer your design onto the lino
* A lino base
* Lino cutters
* A surface to work on when cutting the lino
* A permanent marker to re-draw your design onto the lino (optional)
* Lino printing inks
* Roller to apply ink
* Tray to apply ink to roller
* Tissues and water to clean away unwanted ink from lino base
* Card (thinner than your lino base) to function as a frame/spacer for your print
* Papers to print on
* A place to dry your prints
* PATIENCE
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do for my design. I generally like working later on the day or even at night and I don’t have much patience when I feel the energy to start a new project, so somehow I thought about the orb of the British Crown Jewels. I previously drew it, I don’t remember what for, so I already knew how I would want it to look. I thought it was a suitable design as it’s not too complex.
So I made a sketch on paper I had lying around (it so happens to be blue paper but it really doesn’t matter what kind of paper it is as long as it’s not too thick as you will use carbon paper to transfer the design onto your lino). This photo is after I had already traced the design with a pen, over carbon paper:
The lino base with the design and cut out to create the first layer:
I washed off (or erased with an eraser, I forgot!) the carbon tracing as I worried it would transfer to a print. I decided on the size of the paper (20 x 20 cm) and cut 6 A4 pages to that size using my paper cutter. I placed my lino base at the centre of card and traced it:
I cut away the excess card outside and inside of the “spacer”. I accidentally cut away a little too much meaning the lino could move a little, so I added a little sliver of card back in with tape to ensure the lino was unable to move:
I read that it’s best to use lighter colours for the first layers, so I started with yellow for the background. I placed the lino on scrap paper when rolling the ink on, then place the lino with ink on inside the spacer, and then placed the paper on it and rubbed/pressed it with what is called a baren. I made 6 of these in total as I wanted to ensure I’d have at least 5 good ones at the end of it:
I washed the lino base, the ink roller, and the tray and dried them off using a towel I use for crafting. I then cut away the part of the design I only wanted in yellow and kept everything else, because you end up layering the colours on top of each other. I could still faintly see the lines of my design, so I didn’t have to trace the design onto the lino again. The lino is still yellow despite washing with soap as I guess the pigment really holds onto the lino base. I don’t have a picture of it, but I rolled orange ink onto what you see below to create the next layer. I also added a little star top left of the spacer and I did the same on the back of the papers I print on so I know the orientation of my papers:
The result:
Wash everything again, and cut away more of the design, this is the next layer with ink on it:
The result:
Just keep going:
I found that despite trying to cut away a lot of lino to ensure the design is really raised from the cut-away areas, I did sometimes get ink on bits that were not part of the design. I guess I could have used some kind of vertical spacer as my roller is wider than the lino cut, so that you only get ink on the bits you want. But as I did not think of that at the time, I just used a wet tissue to remove ink and then a dry tissue to dry. For the next and final layer I cut a hole out of some scrap paper to ensure I would not roll ink onto the unwanted areas:
And now, the final result:
One is a little off:
I also realised that I left a little too much of the orange background blob, at the edge of the orb, but it is what it is.
Some of the prints show a lot of texture from the paper despite me not feeling like this is super textured paper, perhaps I should have pushed/rubbed harder when printing, but that became uncomfortable. So maybe it’s time to start looking at a small press to help me with that.
As you are cutting away your design in between printing the layers there’s some dry time already, but I did go ahead printing on ink that was not fully dried but still felt a little sticky. I waited overnight between the red and purple layers as I finally got tired and it was already past my bedtime anyways, ha! I am not sure which is best: waiting for each layer to have dried fully or having less wait-time printing over ink that’s still sticky. You’re probably less likely to smudge if you do wait for each layer to fully dry, but that takes time and I do not generally have the patience for that! Although now that I tried it for the first time and realise I can do this, for a next project I may plan it out more to make a larger print and more prints (rather than just 6), and I will then schedule a day between printing the layers to ensure I get the best outcome.
One thing I contemplated at the start was to scan my drawing and mirror-image it on the computer and then print it to use that to draw the design onto the lino to ensure that the prints turn out in the same way as my original drawing. But as this design doesn’t have any letters or anything else that looks weird mirror-imaged, I skipped this step. But for larger works I think it makes sense to take those extra 10 minutes to mirror your design so that your print comes out exactly as you designed it.
This was really fun to do and I learned a few things on how to do it better a next time. It wasn’t hard to do something small like this to this kind of standard, so if you like printing, definitely give this a go!
I plan to sell some of these prints, and others, at the Rossendale Art Trail taking place May 29-31, 2026.
