The primary relief techniques are woodcut, wood engraving, and linocut . Woodcut is the earliest and most enduring print technique. While woodcuts were first seen in ninth-century China, Western artists have made woodcut prints for hundreds of years, perhaps most notably in the sixteenth and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wood Engraving is made from the end-grain surface of blocks. This surface has no grain and can afford great precision and detail.
Linocut is printed from linoleum, usually backed with wood for reinforcement.
The printed surface has less texture than in a woodcut because of the supple nature of linoleum. The material takes all types of lines, but is most suited to large designs with contrasting tints. The plate is covered with ink, and then cleaned so that only the incised grooves contain ink. The plate and dampened paper are run through a press to create the print. Usually, the plate is smaller than the paper, so that the impression of the plate, or the platemark, remains on the paper.