Block Printing

Process for block printing onto lino My first attempts at laser-cutting a linoleum block of an original illustration last year didn’t go well. However after a lot of time spent (and test paper wasted :0) I’ve found a few things that improved the print process over 4 iterations: Linoleum size and treatment I tested on earlier different versions but finally bought 9"x12" linoleum. It’s hard to find this pre-mounted but it’s important that it’s mounted to a block and flattened so that it doesn’t curl, for a few obvious reasons (the laser has a focus field of < a few mm, and printing also would suffer if it wasn’t flat). ...

I’ve wanted to use lasercutting to help with the more tedious aspects of blockprinting for a long time. I finally had an opportunity to test this with an illustration that had received a lot of positive feedback and sufficient time before the event that I could plan on bringing prints beforehand. Laser setup I’m using L.’s laser which she has generously set up in the woodshop. Lightburn for the software. Settings are here: ...