A no-marketing buying guide to home printmaking kits and courses

What to take away

Every home printmaking kit and course below is named, with what it contains and what it costs, so you can judge it against five questions before you spend.

What is actually inside the box

Speedball's Deluxe Linoleum Block Printing Kit is the one most benches start on: two gouges, a 4-inch brayer, water-soluble ink, a bench hook and a block.

The gouges are the weak part, and most buyers replace them within a year. Pfeil sells Swiss gouges individually, typically $30 to $45 each. Flexcut sells interchangeable blades from about $12, with handles around $25. Buy the kit anyway: the bench hook alone is worth the money.

The Essdee relief kit is the cheaper sibling, sold widely in Canada and the UK, and it usually sells under $35. Same logic, thinner tools, and a plastic handle that flexes under pressure. Fine for a first block, useless by the third.

For cyanotype, Photographers' Formulary in Condon, Montana sells the classic two-part A and B chemistry and a pre-sensitized paper kit, typically $30 to $50. Jacquard's cyanotype kit, from Jacquard Products in Healdsburg, California, is the one stocked in most art supply shops, usually $20 to $30.

Both remove the weighing step, which is the real beginner barrier. Neither includes good paper.

For screen printing, the Speedball Screen Printing Kit gives you a wooden frame, a squeegee sized to it and a small pot of emulsion, typically $45 to $70. The frame is fine. The emulsion is the part with a shelf life, and a kit that has sat in a warehouse has already spent some of it.

Two more named options. A Gelli Arts gel printing plate makes monotypes with no press at all: about $20 at 5 by 5 inches, $40 at 8 by 10 inches. A Woodzilla press, built in Portugal, is a hand-cranked relief press for lino, typically $200 to $400 depending on bed width.

Akua Intaglio from Speedball and Caligo Safe Wash relief ink from Cranfield Colours in the UK clean up with soap and water. A 300 ml tub of either runs about $25 to $35.

The criteria, written down first

Publishing the test before the verdict is what separates a review from a preference. The National Archives does this with its acquisition policy for still picture collections, stating its authority before it accepts anything.

The pattern holds across every row of that table. Kits remove a barrier and rarely supply quality. They suit a first month, not a second year.

Named printmaking courses and what they cost

A course is a product, so apply the same five questions. The one that matters most: does the syllabus name the press, the plate and the chemistry, or does it say "explore relief printing" and leave it there?

Look for a materials list you can price yourself before you enroll. If the list is published, the instructor has thought about your bench. If it is not, ask, and treat a vague answer as the answer.

The craft schools run multi-day workshops with bench time on real presses. Penland School of Craft in Penland, North Carolina runs one- and two-week sessions. Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado runs five-day summer printmaking workshops.

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee run week-long and weekend sessions.

Typically, a weekend workshop costs $200 to $450, a week-long session $600 to $1,200, and a two-week session $900 to $1,800. Housing, meals and lab fees are usually extra.

Regional print centers are cheaper and closer to home. Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut, Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence, Massachusetts and Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, Maryland publish syllabi for their classes.

In New York, Lower East Side Printshop, Manhattan Graphics Center and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop pair classes with studio time. Spudnik Press Cooperative in Chicago, Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis and Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California do the same.

Community colleges are the other reliable format: credit courses at in-district rates, often a few hundred dollars a term plus a lab fee.

A shared studio course that includes bench time on a real press is worth more than a lecture series, because the press is the thing you cannot buy cheaply. Our review framework for inks and paper covers what to bring to that first session.

Second-hand presses, and what you may resell

Most good equipment on the market is used, and reselling it is normal. Owning a lawful copy of a work has a clear result: the statute says the owner of a particular copy lawfully made under the title may sell or otherwise dispose of that copy without the copyright owner's permission.

That covers the books, portfolios and prints that accumulate around a practice. Selling a print you bought is your business. Reproducing the image on it is a different act.

Presses from Takach Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Conrad Machine Company hold their value, which is why the used market stays busy. Older Charles Brand presses resell well too.

Look on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, the Briar Press classifieds and the bulletin boards at the print centers above. Studio clear-outs are the best source of a press with a known history.

Check the roller diameter, the bed length and whether the pressure screws still move freely. A press with seized screws is a bench, not a press. Replacement rollers are quoted by the maker and often run into the hundreds.

What we will not publish

We will not publish durability figures, coverage numbers or comparative test results we have not produced. Where a manufacturer publishes a specification, we say so and treat it as a claim, not a finding.

Our account of what documented projects reveal shows how to generate your own numbers, and documenting a home printmaking project from first cut to finish turns that habit into a record you can compare against. Yours will beat anyone else's, because they were made on your press, in your light, with your paper.

Check what a kit leaves behind once it is used up. The good ones leave reusable tools and a habit. The poor ones leave an empty box and a list of proprietary refills.

Common questions

Are kits ever the cheapest route?

Rarely on price, sometimes on time. A kit that gets you printing this weekend has real value, and the tools inside it outlive the consumables by years.

How do I judge a course sold as a product?

Same five criteria: named materials, replaceable parts, transferable skill. Ask for the materials list before you pay and price it yourself.

Is used equipment risky?

Less than expected for presses and tools, more for anything with a shelf life. Never buy used chemistry, and never buy a used emulsion.

Should I trust a five-star review page?

Read the one and two-star reviews for specifics. Detail is the signal, not the rating.