Studio Days | Komorebi Inspired Prints

Over the last few months I’ve been busy working on a new series of prints inspired by the Japanese word, Komorebi, which is used to describe sunlight shining through trees. I’ve always been attracted to the dappled light coming through the canopy on walks, and the beautiful patterns it creates on the ground, so I’ve gathered many photographs over the years.

I’ve used these photographs to collage new environments that celebrate the simplicity and joy that being in nature brings with the suns rays shining through the trees.

Once my digital collages were finished, I turned them into lots of small dots to print as halftone images. Above left is a close up of the fine halftone through a loupe, which is a detailed section of ‘Beneath Daylight’. I then placed the transparency in the exposure unit with a screen coated in light sensitive photo emulsion placed on top and left it to expose under UV light for twelve minutes, before taking the exposed screen out to the washout area to rinse out the unhardened emulsion, which leaves the image on the screen ready to be screenprinted.

Honestly, the setting up for screenprinting seems to be the longest part, unless you’re printing multiple layers, of course. So once I’ve dried my screen off, I then set up the newsprint for pulling some test prints and the Japanese paper for the edition, and mixed up the graphite powder ready to get printing.

After taping up any pinholes that I don’t want the ink to go through and end up on my print, I’m good to go. I pull a couple of prints on newsprint to check it’s all printing ok and then I print the image on a sheet of acetate ready to register. The acetate is taped to the print bed (above left) and flipped over to print on, I then place the template underneath that I’ve made to make sure each print in the series is in the same place.

When I’ve lined it up in position (registered the image), I put down some registration stops, which means I place the Japanese paper up to those markers each time, which ensures the image is printed in the same position each time I pull the ink through the screen.

I’ve repeated this process over a number of different days to print each edition, and each time it was a lovely sunny day in the studio. Above left is ‘Beneath Daylight’ drying on the rack and right, ‘In The Streaming Light’ finished prints ready to go through and select the final edition prints.

Proof prints of, In The Streaming Light, With The Sunlight and Beneath Daylight on the studio wall for reference when printing the fourth in this new Komorebi inspired series. Unfortunately after printing the fourth one three times, I’m still not 100% happy with how it’s coming out, but I’ll get there and update you when I do!

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