Lithographic crayons are crayons with a high oil content used in lithography. They are available in pencil and stick (like Conte crayons) forms. Both types come in varying degrees of hardness so they should be selected according to drawing conditi

A dermatograph is a colored pencil made of rolled paper and is used in block printing instead of a lithographic crayon when doing lithographs. A dermatograph is made of paper wound into a pencil shape. Unlike a conventional pencil, it is unique in

A screen frame is the frame on which a mesh (made of tetron, nylon, silk, etc.) stencil for screen printing is stretched. The frames come in various sizes but they must be slightly larger than the actual image to be printed (image size) because a squ

Rubber spatulas are used mainly for copper plate and wood intaglio printing and for removing excess ink from the block. They generally comprise a wooden handle with a piece of rounded rubber on the end or a squeegee large enough to fit in the hand.

Kakiron (touch up pen) and keshiron (eraser pen) are pen-type tools for making corrections to finished plates used in metal lithography. Since both these instruments rely on chemical reactions, they do not require conventional surface treatment on th

Uchi kento and soto kento are registration marks that determine the position of the paper in woodblock printing. A registration mark carved within the woodblock is called uchi kento while one carved into a separate wood board, known as a kentoban, is

Hari kento is a registration method used in lithography and multi-color copperplate printing to place the printing paper in the correct position against the plate using needles. This technique is employed in normal printing, and also when the pape

Registration marks (kento) are placed on the printing plates to position the paper correctly for printing. They are indispensable, particularly for works produced through multiple printing. The quality of the work will depend greatly on the accuracy

A printmaker uses an ink slab, basically the equivalent of a painting palette for printmaking, to mix and roll ink. Most ink slabs are made out of marble (natural or artificial) or thick chamfered glass (approximately 1 cm thick). Hard, heavy, and

Made from paper mulberry, kōzoshi is a strong yet light and supple type of handmade Japanese paper. The paper has many different uses—from applications in painting as a support and lining paper of Japanese-style paintings (nihonga) and paper for wood

A printing block is a wooden board that artists use as a plate material when creating woodblock prints. There are two basic types of printing blocks: a cross-grain type, cut vertically to go with the fiber of the wood, and an end-grain type, cut i

Copperplate ink is an oil-based ink used in intaglio printing (ōhan), which can be made by mixing the paint with extender pigments such as aluminum hydroxide and burnt linseed or plate oil (as mediums), then knead them together. Copperplate ink co

The chisel (chōkokutō), a carving knife used in woodcut printing, is a wood-handled, steel-bladed tool for carving into printing blocks. Chisels take their names from their tip shapes. In general, there are four widely used kinds of chisel: the cu

Takuzuri rubbing is one of the techniques of letterpress printing (toppan). It is a rubbing-printing method that involves transferring the patterns (monyō) and designs (zugara) on the protruding sections onto paper by applying the paper to the engrav

Damp rags (or uesu) called yawara are used in woodcut printing. Yawara are laid beneath a woodblock to prevent shifting when a printmaker burnishes paper against the woodblock. In woodcut printing, the printmaker applies a considerable amount of f

A printmaker uses a machine called a press to apply pressure to plates and paper, thereby transferring ink from the plates to the paper. The press is said to have been invented in the 15th century when a grape press was adapted for letterpress pri

The baren is a burnishing tool that printmakers use to transfer an image on a printing block to paper. The printmaker applies pressure with the baren to burnish paper placed on a printing block so that the paper picks up ink from the block. The ba

The hakobi, made from finely split bamboo skin that is gathered on a stick like a broom, is used in water-color woodcut printing applications to dissolve paint and transfer the dissolved paint to the woodblock. In use since the days of ukiyoe, printm

Hahnemuhle, made by the German paper manufacturer Hahnemuhle FineArt, Inc. (founded in 1584), is a form of print paper suitable for copperplate and other intaglio applications. A neutralized paper derived from cotton pulp (100%), Hahnemuhle is adequa

Printmaking rollers are used to apply oil-based ink to printmaking surfaces when using wooden blocks, or when using copperplates or lithographs for chromolithography. There are two types of rollers: leather rollers and synthetic rubber rollers. Le

Lithography is a method of press printmaking that utilizes printing surfaces (planographs) made of such materials as lithographic stone (limestone) or metals (aluminum or zinc plates). The process makes use of water and oil's natural propensity to re

The printing ink used for lithographs is made by combining linseed oil with pigments. There is another type of printing ink, a fast-drying type made from resin that is used in offset printing, but it is best not to use this ink by itself when prin

Palettes used in oil painting are surfaces upon which the variously colored oil paints are assembled, and upon which those paints can be blended and their consistency can be adjusted. Depending on the properties of the materials being used for the

A tanpo (Chinese: da bao) is a ball of cloth around which another cloth has been wrapped and then tied off at the top with a string, resembling a small pouch. Primarily tanpo are used to apply ink in the process of taking rubbings (takuhon) of cal

Ink spatulas (French: spatule) are a type of spatula used in the printing of woodblocks and other print art when blending colors and adjusting the thickness of the ink, spreading ink on the inking surface, and in cleaning. Spatulas come in a varie

Aluminum Litho plates are metallic (aluminum) plates that are used for lithograph prints; when one roughens one face in order to turn it into a surface for printing. Although stones were originally used for lithographic prints, a number of problem

T-shaped kento is one form of registration mark that is made when producing block prints so that the position of the paper vis-à-vis the blocks is always uniform. They are used primarily with lithographs. Such targets are essential when producing

Komasuki is one type of U gouges, rounded blades in the shape of a half-cylinder that are used to carve into the surface of woodcut printing blocks.  “Komasuki” refers specifically to the ones that have a particularly narrow gauge. &