Sponsors of this Project

McClain's Printmaking Supplies offers materials to relief printmakers, including wood engravers, monotype printers, linocut and woodcut artists. McClain's ties to Japan are strong. We specialize in Moku Hanga supplies imported from Japan, where high quality woodblock printmaking tools and materials have been made by fine craftsmen for hundreds of years. Robert and Yoko McClain, the founders of McClain's Printmaking Supplies, established these important relationships with the Japanese craftsmen and our suppliers over 30 years ago.

In support of the printmakers involved in the "Inspired by Japan" portfolio project, McClain's offered a 50% discount on Washi (Japanese handmade paper), along with our sincere thanks to everyone who worked to help the people of Japan.

Blick Art Materials remains the premier art supply source for professional artists, students, and teachers, and continues to be a family-owned business. Our annual Artist's and Educator's catalogs, more than 500 and 600 pages, respectively, are considered industry 'bibles'. We also offer hundreds of printable lesson plans and video workshops for teachers, and product videos for artists, to help them with their purchase decisions and techniques.

We provide our customers with the best service, best selection, best price, and best quality in the industry and create a working climate that calls forth the best in every employee, fully capitalizing on emerging technologies and opportunities for growth and supporting the arts and arts education in every way we can.

Our reputation as a manufacturer of the Finest Art Materials dates back more than 200 years.  In 1983, the Daler Board Company purchased the George Rowney Company to become Daler-Rowney Limited as it's known today.  In their own specialist areas of manufacture, both companies led the development of fine artist's materials in the United Kingdom for many years.  The combined heritage of both companies and the Daler-Rowney name has become synonymous with consistent quality to artists throughout the world.

Typically, an oil painting requires a sealed, toothed surface to pull the thick oil colour off the brush.  Arthur, a talented artist himself, improvised to create a new surface to replace canvas.  Cardboard was sealed and primed through a mesh (we believe he used a kitchen net curtain), which when removed left a perfectly textured surface.  Arthur's canvas substitute was eventually developed into a commercial product and the 'Daler Board' was born. Daler developed a variety of products across the whole spectrum of artist's materials between 1945 and 1960 including pads such as the distinctive red and yellow Series A.  Other new products to the Daler range included canvas panels, stretched canvas, mountboard and artist's luggage.  In 1975, Daler introduced the first synthetic brush to the artists materials market. 'Dalon' was the first real rival to the sable brush for over 100 years. Once the two companies merged, Daler-Rowney became highly successful in the United Kingdom and has become one of the leaders in the artist's materials market.

The [Baren] Printmakers group

The Baren Forum began about 10 years ago and has developed as one of the best websites for information on woodblock printing on the internet. Consisting of over 300 artist members who do nothing to belong except join. Once you join you can receive daily blogs or you can read the archived email messages between the members online. The information sent is usually about woodblock and if you have a question, there are many who will answer it almost immediately. It is a wonderful resource for artist, new and practiced. The artists do 4 print exchanges a year and the wonder of them is anyone can sign up, first come, so the subsequent exchanges show the work of artists very new to woodblock and those that have made wood block prints for many years.