What Is a Reduction Print? A Guide to Linocut Reduction Printing

Reduction printing is my favourite technique in the whole of linocut, hands down. It’s also, I think, the one that trips people up the most when they’re first getting their head around it. So let’s start right at the beginning.

What Is a Reduction Print?

A reduction print is a linocut technique where multiple layers of colour are all cut and printed from a single block, with lino being carved away between each printing stage.

You print your first colour, then carve away the areas you want to keep in that colour before printing your next layer on top, and so on. Through this you build up the full image, layer by layer, from the same piece of lino. 

My print ‘Sunflowers’ is a good example of this in action: each colour you see was printed from the same block, carved a little further away each time.

Because you’re removing lino as you go, there’s no going back. By the time a reduction print is finished, the block itself often has very little surface left on it. Which means, quite literally, that once your edition is printed, that’s it. Reduction prints are, by their very nature, limited editions. You can’t reprint the block once it’s gone.

Layers of a reduction linocut - Sunflowers. ‘Sunflowers’ also has monoprinted elements which means each print in the edition is unique and will vary slightly.

Watch the Layers Build

If you want to really understand how a reduction print comes together, it helps enormously to see it in motion rather than just read about it. I’ve put together a video showing the layers of a reduction linocut being built up, colour by colour, right through to the finished piece. Give this a watch if you’re curious to try.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/052de0_f452ca125d264104b94797bd72a75b01/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Layers of a linocut reduction

Why I Love Working This Way

Reduction linocut can be genuinely frustrating and some students don’t like it at all. If a carve doesn’t go quite the way you expected, or you misjudge how a layer of colour will sit over the one beneath it, there’s no undoing that decision. You carry it through to the final print, for better or worse.

But that’s also exactly why I love it. It takes real planning to work out your layers in advance, thinking through which colours need to go down first and what needs protecting at each stage. And yet, once you’re actually in the flow of it, printing layer after layer, that planning starts to feel much more intuitive. You begin to trust your instincts about colour and carving in a way that other linocut techniques don’t quite demand of you in the same way.

If you’ve never tried reduction printing before, I’d really encourage you to have a go, even on something small and simple. It teaches you more about colour, layering and commitment than almost any other printmaking technique I know.

I teach reduction technique in North London at The Art Stables, Finchley and Barnet Guild of Artists. Check for upcoming courses