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. The best history of lino printing I’ve found so far is a wonderfully detailed account by Andrea Tietze, titled, “The linocut in history and in the art of the modern age.” It’s found in Linoleum: History, Design, Architecture, 1882-2000 by Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz (2000).

Vienna was amongst the first places where linoleum was used for art. This essay in Schirn Mag gives a nice summary of the relief printmaking movement there around 1900. Though it focuses on the woodcut, it includes Hugo Henneberg’s linocut called, Night Scene - Blue Pond from 1904.

Carving a circle

The first linocuts that I’ve been able to find through trustworthy sources (like major museum collections around the world) have been from the United States. I’d like to note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that the United States was the first adopt linoleum. I’ve found two linocuts from 1895 from US artists (Will H. Bradley and San Francisco’s Bruce Porter).

Varied widths of line made by different tools. Notice how the two ends of each line you carve are shaped by the tool. Top to bottom: 1 mm U, 3 mm U, 5 mm U, 1 mm V, large V (shallow cut), large V (deep cut). 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.Rubber Stamping: Get creative with stamps, rollers and other printmaking techniques, Stephen Fowler, 2016 The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art edited by Gerald W. R. Ward (2008) - mentions that linoleum was used for printing on wallpaper in Germany in 1890. Then by artists in the early 1900’s. Notes the importance of Cizek. 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.