Printmaking with blue easy carve surface

This blog and accompanying video below will review and demonstrate in action an easy carve surface for printmaking. The block I am reviewing is the easy carve blue block, which has smooth surfaces on both sides, is very flexible, and is approximately 3mm thick.

The block was very easy to cut down to size using a small craft knife. Transferring my design to the surface was very easy, you can either draw directly onto the block in pencil or trace onto the surface using standard tracing paper. It will also accept normal ink for drawing on the surface. I didn't really have any issues with the pencil smudging so it was easy to see my design when carving.

The block lives up to it's name, it is very easy to carve into, I had no problems using small v gouges for detail or large U gouges to clear bigger sections on this surface. The material doesn't snap off after carving, like with traditional lino for printmaking, but does peel away quite easily. The easy carve blue block has a slightly lighter blue colour under the surface, so that helped me to see what I had carved away.

I used Schmincke water based printmaking ink on the block, and it applied and adhered to the surface fairly well as long as you apply a thin light layer, it can hold detail and didn't smudge too much when going through the press but you have to be careful how much pressure you apply, so there is no sliding with that very soft rubbery texture of the block.

As I applied ink previously to the block, it did stain the surface a little bit, however for me, that is not really a problem and did not bother me at all. I would recommend this printmaking block for beginners and people that perhaps have wrist issues or get sore hands when carving, just because it is so simple to use, so easy to carve, and very easy to ink up aswell. You can see in the video below, I got fairly consistent colour every time I added a new layer and was pleased with the result. Thanks for reading my blog and watching the video below, I hope it was helpful.