Linocut: A Creative Guide to Making Beautiful Prints
Ebook
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Overview
A step-by-step guide on how to create personal and contemporary linocut prints.
A linocut is a relief print created by carving a design into a printing block. It is the uncut surface, not the carved away areas, that gives you your image when you roll it with ink, lay paper on top then apply pressure to produce a print.
With 18 easy-to-follow projects that can be adapted to suit your own ideas, experienced printmaker Sam Marshall guides you through the whole process – from the drawing to the carving to the inking to the printing – of creating your own beautiful prints and handmade cards whether you are working from your kitchen table or a more advanced studio set-up.
By taking inspiration from everyday life, Sam helps you to build your confidence with observational drawing. Featuring step-by-step projects, the book demonstrates a range of skills with low-cost materials to produce simple linocuts, reduction linocuts and colourful multi-block prints. You will also learn more experimental techniques such as combining monoprint, chine collé, jigsaw linocuts and rainbow rolls and pick up handy tips on subjects such as ‘noise’ and editioning your prints.
Beautifully illustrated with photographs of Sam’s own drawings and linocuts, and featuring the work of 5 talented printmakers, Linocut is an essential guide to linocut printmaking. Packed with creative and practical advice to guide and encourage you, whether you’re just starting out, returning to the craft or looking to expand your printmaking skills.
A step-by-step guide on how to create personal and contemporary linocut prints.
The author regularly gives global printmaking and drawing workshops and has a very engaged Instagram following (33.4k). She can be found at @sammarshallart.
The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs and focuses on observational drawing as a starting point, something that other linocut books neglect. As a teacher at the Royal Drawing School, the author is well-placed to provide this instruction.
Students are inspired by the author’s personal approach and are encouraged to use their own autobiographical subject matter to connect to their own work. Their home, garden, days out and travels abroad can be effectively translated in to linocuts to make beautiful prints and cards to share with friends and family.
Introduction
About this book
1. What is Linocut?
- The History of Linocutting
- How Linocutting is Used Today
2. Tools and Materials
- Linocut Tools
- Lino
- Ink
- Ink Rollers
- Papers
- Hand Printing Tools
- Small Presses
- Inking Slab
- Sketchbooks
- Other Bits and Bobs
3. Preparing your Workspace
- Drawing and Cutting Area
- Printing Area
- Drying Area
- Storage Area for Materials and Prints
4. From Image to Block
- Drawing Directly Onto the Block
- Tracing Your Drawing the Traditional Way
- Tracing Directly from the Drawing
- Using Carbon Paper to Transfer Your Drawing
An Interview with Cally Conway
5. Mark Marking
- Holding Your Tools
- Using Your Tools Safely
- Mark-making Warm-up
6. Cleaning Up
- Cleaning Up Oil-based
- Water-soluble Inks
7. Carving Lino
- One Image Four Ways
An Interview with Harriet Popham
8. Registration
- Super-simple Registration
- Paper Template Registration
- Registration Board
- Ternes Burton Clips
9. Simple Linocuts
- Black-and-white Print
- Adding Colour to Your Simple Linocut
10. Noise
- Red Kites
11. Out in the Garden
- A Nature Study
- Tips on Drawing Outside or In Public
12. Editioning Prints
- Edition Size
- Pricing
- How to Edition
- Numbering and Signing
- Limited-edition Prints
13. A Weekend Away
- Holiday Memory Print
An Interview with Izzy Williamson
14. Reduction Linocut
- A Practical Object
15. Multi-block Prints
- Key Block Method
- Four-block Print
An Interview with Meg Justice
16. Displaying Multiple Prints
- Concertina Book
17. Experimental Printmaking
- Combining Monoprint and Linocut
- Repurposing Old Blocks
- Linocut and Chine Collé
- Jigsaw Linocut
- Rainbow Roll
An Interview with Tristan Sherwood
18. Making Linocut Cards
- Single-block Card
- Two-block Card
19. Bringing It All Together
- A Large Linocut
20. Next Steps in Printmaking
- Relief Techniques
- Intaglio Printmaking
- Other Printing Techniques
Conclusion
- Practical Tips When Things Aren’t Going ’Right’
- Setting Up a Regular Practice
- Advice for When You Are Lacking in Motivation
- Call Yourself an Artist
Sam Marshall’s new linocut book positively fizzes with the author’s energy and enthusiasm for her subject. Beautifully and extensively illustrated, largely with her own exuberant prints of her life in the English countryside, she carefully nurtures the reader on their own creative journey with a series of practical, well explained and easy to follow linocutting and drawing projects plus plenty of invaluable practical advice relevant both to the complete beginner and to the more experienced practitioner. Sam’s focus is very much on empowering the reader to engage confidently with their chosen art medium and I have no doubt that her warm and inclusive approach will charm and enthuse all her readers. I highly recommend it.
In this beautiful and lively book, you feel welcomed into the world of relief printing. The instructions are well set out with easily understood practical guidance, and such a friendly vibe, you can’t fail to want to grab your tools and get started.
U.K.-based artist Sam Marshall’s Linocut (...) makes doing it yourself feel approachable, with friendly, precise instructions and projects that build in degrees of complexity
- Title: Linocut: A Creative Guide to Making Beautiful Prints
- Author: Sam Marshall
- Publisher: Herbert Press
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 176
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781789940688, 1789940680
- Resource ID: LLS:9781789940688
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T13:01:44Z
Sam Marshall is a printmaker living in rural Northamptonshire with her mini dachshund Miss Marple. She trained at the Slade School of Fine Art for her BA and completed the postgraduate level 'Drawing Year' at the Royal Drawing School where she now teaches. She has a print studio in her garden where she makes all her work – linocuts, drawings and etchings. Sam runs online drawing and printmaking workshops that attract students from all over the world.