Caring for Your Blocks
Learn to care for, clean, and maintain your carved printing blocks. With a few simple steps, you can ensure that your carving material lasts a lifetime.
Caring for your printing blocks is essential to your block printing process. Whether at a beginner skill level or a master block printer level, you have spent a lot of time and care drawing and carving your designs onto your lino block. You want to make sure they last!
I recommend not using too much ink to make it easier to clean your blocks after you print them. Relief printing is fun if you don’t end up with ink on all sides of your blocks and all over yourself!
Caring for your blocks: Speedball Speedy-carve
When you finish hand block printing, press your speedy-carve rubber blocks on a scrap piece of paper to remove as much excess ink from the surface as possible. If your block still has ink, you can remove it by gently washing it with soap. I like using Dawn Dish Soap.
When thinking about storage for your blocks, you will want to ensure they are laid out flat so they don’t warp. This is especially important for flexible blocks like speedy-carve or easy-cut rubber blocks. When I carve blocks, I generally plan to reuse them. I like keeping those carved blocks in a flat file drawer to keep them clean and prevent them from warping. If soft blocks get battered around, they might get damaged. To maintain a smooth surface for printing next time, ensure you don’t have anything rubbing or bumping into your blocks.
The Dry Method Unmounted Linoleum Blocks
Storing Speedball Speedy-carve blocks
- Press your block on a piece of paper to remove excess ink.
- Gently wash your blocks with soap. I like using Dawn Dish Soap.
- Dry your blocks with a soft cotton cloth.
- Lay blocks flat.
- Store blocks away from direct light.
Can you stack Speedball Speedy-carve blocks to save space?
You can! If I have blocks of a similar size, I will stack them in the drawer. Larger blocks of speedy carve should be on the bottom of the stack so they don’t bend over time. Before doing this, I ensure they are entirely free of ink and dry so they don’t stick together. You will notice that these blocks may become stained. That’s normal! If you have washed your blocks until all the ink comes off, and the towel isn’t picking up more ink when you’re drying them, they are as clean as they will get and are ready to be stored.
Storage tip: Write the title of your block and the date it was carved on the back of your block using a permanent marker. Labeling the edge is a great way to quickly find the block I am looking for in a stack.
Caring for your blocks: Linoleum Blocks
Below, I talk about two different ways people clean up their hand-cut linoleum blocks when they are done with a block printing project. Your carving block
If you remove as much block printing ink from them as possible before storing them, they will be in good shape to use again. Block printing ink that is left on a block can be sticky and cured over time, making it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to remove later. I most commonly use Speedball Linoleum, and it is my favorite. Blick Art Materials has a battleship called grey or golden cut linoleum, which is also very popular. Both require the same cleaning method below.
The Wet Method Mounted Linoleum Blocks
This method is more commonly used with oil-based inks but will also work with water-based ink.
- When you are done printing, press residual ink on scrap paper.
- Wash your blocks with soap or clean them with mineral spirits.
- Take care not to submerge your block entirely in water – if the water loosens the glue, the top can peel off.
- Dry your blocks with a soft cotton cloth.
- Store dry blocks away from direct light.
- Keeping blocks in a cabinet or cupboard will keep them clean and prevent them from getting damaged.
Tip: If your linoleum starts to peel off the wood block, you can reattach it using a small amount of wood glue. While your glue dries, set something heavy on the lino to ensure your linoleum is flat as it reattaches.
The Dry Method Unmounted Linoleum Blocks
This method is more commonly used with oil-based inks but will also work with water-based ink. If you are printing while traveling and don’t have access to a sink suitable for cleaning up ink, cleaning your blocks with the dry method is a good idea. It is also a popular way to clean blocks at a home studio.
- When you’re done lino printing, use scrap paper to print your block repeatedly until the block is clean of ink.
- You can carefully wash the top with dish soap and a washcloth and wipe it down with Crisco oil or mineral spirits (ensure you have good ventilation if using mineral spirits).
- Take care not to submerge your unmounted block entirely in water—if the hessian backing gets wet, it will curl.
- Lay dry unmounted blocks flat for storage so they don’t warp. An easy way to ensure your block stays flat is to set something heavy on top as it finishes drying.
- Store blocks away from direct light.
Tip: Have no fear if your hessian backing on an unmounted linoleum block gets wet and curls! Lay the linoleum block out, place some cardboard on top with something heavy to weigh it down, for best results leave it that way for a few days to dry flat.
Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn Speare, M.S.Ed. is a visual artist and professional educator. The Friendly Printmaker is the place to learn about printmaking, find product reviews, and find inspiration for DIY relief print projects. Learn more about Jacquelyn here.
