Art Supplies for Beginners: Printmaking

This is a guide to my favorite art supplies for beginners: printmaking edition. So you want to begin a printmaking practice. Hooray!

“Printmaking is controlled chaos.” – Niki de Saint Phalle

I’ve put together a list of eight art supplies that are essential to my own printmaking practice and maybe to yours too!

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Monotype/Monoprint

I will always be a gelatin plate fanatic. 

Gelatin printing is immediately fun for beginners and so deep and complex that it can keep advanced printmakers hooked for years.  You can make super fun accidental prints, but with a little know how, you can make glorious purposeful prints.  If you don’t have one, get one.  If you already have one, size up!  I’ve been loving using my 16×20 plate to make big art, like this piece:

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Basic Tools that work for Multiple Forms of Printmaking

Every printmaker needs a brayer.  In virtually all printmaking disciplines, there’s some kind of ink or paint rolling that’s required at some point.  I own Speedball soft rubber brayers in multiple different sizes.

I used to be dedicated to the 2″ brayer, but I find myself reaching for the 4″ more often these days.  The 6″ is on my holiday wish list! Brayers can even be used to make prints, like these:

A baren is one of those tools that I use virtually every time I do any kind of printmaking.  It’s a tool that creates even pressure when you use it.

It’s versatile, compact, and makes hand printing easier to do with better results.  Plus, you only have to buy one in your life.  It doesn’t wear out. I’ve had mine for more than a decade.

The best tool ever for registration is Ternes-Burton Pins and Tabs. 

You cannot beat them for ease of use.  They were designed to make registering multi-colored lino prints easy. They’re the reason I was able to get super clean registration on these reduction prints:

I cover how I use Ternes-Burton Pins and Tabs for gelatin printing in my Year of Gelatin Printing course.

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Screen Printing

Recently, I’ve fallen hard for Speedball Professional Poster Black Screen Printing ink.

It’s only for paper — so don’t use it on fabric or anything you plan to wash.  But, it’s crisp and clean and one of the easiest screen printing inks I’ve ever used.  Perfect consistency and great results right away! Here are some beautiful screen prints from my students, Judie, using this ink in a printmaking class she took with me:

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Stamping & Block Printing

Speedy Carve is one supply I always need to have on hand.  I love to carve my own stamps and no list on printmaking would be complete without Speedy Carve. It’s the pink rubber that I carved this stamp out of:

I’ve tried a number of other blocks from many manufacturers and I keep coming back to Speedy Carve.  It is both easy to carve and strong enough to last for years without breaking and crumbling.  I recommend it to every stamp carver.  Well worth getting the name brand for stamps that make great prints and last.

If I could only have one ink pad for the rest of my life, it would be a Jet Black Archival Ink Pad.

Buy yourself a re-inker and you can keep using that ink pad for years.  The reason I love Archival Ink is because it stamps (and dries) on top of dried acrylic paint.  Here are a bunch of examples from my art journal:

There aren’t a lot of ink pads that do.  It also doesn’t require any special stamp cleaner.  It has no funky odor and it’s totally permanent once dry.  It’s definitely one of those tools that I can’t live without.

When I’m doing chine-collé…

…I love to use YES! Paste.

It has a fairly long open time.  It can be spread with a brush.  And it really sticks. 

I also really like Nori Paste for this purpose too.

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Wrap Up

So there you have it: my printmaking favorites! If you’re a beginner looking for the right art supplies, I hope you found this post useful.  Let me know if you have printmaking supply questions!

PS: I’ve put together a 4-part series on some of my favorite art supplies, divided by discipline:

1. Art Supplies for Painters
2. Art Supplies for Printmakers (this post)
3. Art Supplies for Art Journalers
4. Art Supplies for Collage Artists