It is best to mix only inks from the same family – oil base with oil base, rubber base with rubber, acrylic with acrylic.

Try our letterpress ink basic starter kit, which includes Printing Black; Flame Red (032); Reflex Blue; Yellow; Transparent White (mixing white); and Opaque White (printing white). If you’re ready for more, you may want to try the remaining Pantone base colors.

Add magnesium carbonate liberally to your ink. Magnesium carbonate is available from Daniel Smith Art Supply.

With letterpress, we tend to print dark ink on light paper, because that is letterpress printing’s strength! Light ink on dark paper is really best suited for engraving. That said, if you really want light ink on dark paper, just be prepared for paper show through. Letterpress uses transparent inks. Even with opaque white, printing light ink on dark paper will be like using a thin coat of white paint on a brown wall: you’ll see the brown color through the paint. If using a pure white ink or metallic ink, you can run a piece through the press twice to create a more dense color.

Oil based inks will dry within a few hours if left unattended on press; dried oil-based inks can take a long time to clean and can even cause rollers to be permanently damaged.

To clean ink off your press, we recommend California Wash used with rags or disposable shop towels. This press wash cleans up acrylic, oil based and rubber based inks well, is a low VOC solvent, and has a mild somewhat citrus odor.