The Best Paper for Printmaking of 2026

Stonehenge is the paper that most working printmakers reach for first, and after comparing the listings and maker specs across this whole category we still think it earns that spot. The listing states 100 percent cotton at 250 gsm in 22 by 30 inch sheets, which is the classic full-sheet printmaking size that tears down cleanly to quarter sheets for cards and half sheets for editions. The surface is a smooth vellum with a faint tooth, and that combination is why it crosses categories: linocut ink lays down flat and even on it dry, and when you dampen it for drypoint or etching it opens up and pulls ink out of the plate without turning to felt.

Where it trails BFK is under a hard wipe on a deeply bitten plate, where the softer surface can lift a little fuzz. For most home studios that never becomes a problem. The bigger practical point is cost: at this pack's price you are paying a fair bit less per full sheet than Rives BFK, which is what lets you print a real edition instead of three precious proofs. If you want the deckle edges, the 25-sheet pack of the same stock is the better value per sheet; if you want to try it first, Legion sells the same paper in 9 by 12 and 11 by 14 pads.

If Stonehenge is the everyday paper, Rives BFK is the paper you print the piece you are going to frame. The listing states 250 gsm in 22 by 30 inch white sheets, and the maker describes it as mould-made, 100 percent cotton, and lightly sized. That last detail is the whole story for intaglio: a lightly sized sheet, properly dampened, becomes pliable enough to be pressed down into every etched line and every aquatint grain, and absorbent enough to pull the ink out rather than smear across it. Printmakers talk about "plate tone" as a quality that BFK shows better than anything else, and comparing owner feedback across papers, that reputation is consistent.

The trade-offs are price and delicacy. Five full sheets cost about what ten sheets of Stonehenge do, and the softness that makes it wonderful under a press makes it easy to dent, crease, or feather at the edges during handling. Tear it, do not cut it, if you want the deckle look. If you print a lot of drypoints on a small tabletop press like the ones in our etching press guide, buying BFK in the 19.5 by 25.5 inch 180 gsm size is a cheaper way to get the same surface for smaller plates.

Every serious printmaking paper list mentions Arches 88, and every list should explain that it is a different animal. Arches makes it with no sizing at all, and the surface is nearly plate-smooth. The maker specs put it at 300 gsm, 100 percent cotton, mould-made in France, the same mill that makes the watercolor paper in our Arches vs Fabriano vs Strathmore comparison. Sizing is what slows water penetration in a sheet; leave it out and the paper becomes extremely receptive to ink, which is exactly what a screen printer wants. Colors sit on the surface, flat and saturated, with none of the dot pattern that a textured sheet imposes on a solid.

For linocut printers it is a quiet luxury. A carved block inked with oil-based relief ink prints onto Arches 88 with edges so crisp that tiny hatching survives, which is why some fine-line relief artists use nothing else. It is not our overall pick because a working studio also pulls intaglio and monotype, and 88 is wrong for those. But if your practice is a screen and a squeegee, or a block and a baren, this is the best surface money buys.

Arches Cover was the lithographer's paper for decades, and the same sheet now ships as Velin Arches. The listing states 250 gsm in a 10-sheet pack; the maker describes a mould-made, 100 percent cotton sheet with a fine, uniform surface and light internal sizing. Where BFK is soft and cloudlike, Velin has a slightly firmer hand and a more even grain, which matters for lithography and for photo-based intaglio where you want the paper to receive fine halftone dots evenly rather than swallow them.

Practically, it belongs in the studio of a printmaker who already owns BFK and wants a second premium sheet with a different character, or a lithographer who wants the traditional stock. One caution: the Amazon listing does not state the sheet dimension, so if you need full 22 by 30 sheets, verify on the product page before you order. For most buyers comparing this and BFK, the honest answer is that either will print beautifully and the choice comes down to the feel you prefer in the hand.

Every print studio has a paper for proofing and editions, and for most of them it should be Lenox 100. The listing states 22 by 30 inch sheets at 250 gsm in a 20-sheet package, and Legion describes it as 100 percent cotton, acid free, and lightly sized. Do the per-sheet math against the premium papers on this page and it is roughly half the cost of BFK and comfortably under Stonehenge. That is what makes editioning possible: pulling 15 relief prints on cotton without wincing at each sheet.

Dampening behaves like Stonehenge: a spray and a blot for intaglio and drypoint, dry for relief. The sheet is sturdy enough for students and for the repeated handling an edition involves, and it tears cleanly against a straightedge for smaller formats. If you are stocking a home studio from scratch alongside a press from our printmaking presses guide, a box of Lenox for everyday work and a pack of BFK for the keepers is the sensible two-paper setup.

Western cotton papers need a press to print relief well; Japanese kozo papers do not, and that changes what a home printmaker can do. The listing states 46 gsm kozo sheets at 17 by 20 inches, ten to a pack, made by Awagami Factory in Tokushima. Kozo is the inner bark of the paper mulberry, and its fibers are many times longer than cotton linters, which is why a sheet this thin can be burnished hard with a baren over an inked block and come away intact, with every carved line rendered. This is the paper behind traditional woodblock printing, and it prints modern linocut just as well.

The look is the reason to pay for it. Ink sits in the surface with a soft luminosity, and the slight translucency lets light come through when a print is floated in a frame. It is also the standard paper for chine-collé, where a thin sheet is glued down onto a heavier cotton backing during printing. If you print by hand with the kind of kit in our linocut block printing kits guide, this is the upgrade that most changes your results.

Not every relief print needs Japanese mill paper, and Black Ink's Thai mulberry pack is the honest budget answer. The listing describes unbleached Thai mulberry sheets sold as a block printing pack. Mulberry is the same fiber family as kozo, so the same physics applies: long fibers make a thin sheet strong enough to burnish by hand, and an unsized surface takes relief ink cleanly with a soft, slightly matte finish. For a beginner working through a linocut kit, this is the paper that makes hand printing click, because the results look like prints rather than stamped copier paper.

The compromises are exactly what the price implies. Sheets vary in thickness and in the amount of visible fiber inclusion, which some printmakers love for character and others find inconsistent across an edition. The natural tone is unmistakably tan, which flatters black and earth-tone inks and fights pastels. And the packs are card-scale rather than full sheets. For holiday cards, practice prints, and testing a new block, it is exactly right; when a print is worth keeping, step up to the Awagami above.

The most useful paper in a print studio is the one you are willing to waste, and the Strathmore 300 pad is built to be wasted well. The listing states an 11 by 14 inch pad of 30 lightweight sheets, and Strathmore's 300 series is acid-free wood-pulp paper made for student and practice work. Its surface is smooth and evenly sized, so a relief block inked with a brayer prints crisp on it dry, and the results are good enough to judge your carving and inking honestly, which is the entire purpose of a proof.

It is also the right paper for gel plate monoprinting, which eats through sheets faster than any other process, and for classrooms where thirty students each need a stack. What it is not is edition paper. Wood pulp yellows over decades no matter how it is buffered, and a serious collector can tell the hand of a cotton sheet at a glance. So the workflow we recommend is simple: proof on Strathmore until the block and ink are right, then print the edition on Lenox or Stonehenge. A pad of this and a box of cotton covers everything a relief printer does, and the total cost is under what a single premium paper pack runs.