GYOTAKU: ALL THE FISH FIT TO PRINT
by Nancy Gorr
This flounder was caught, painted and printed in the "Gyotaku" technique by Nancy Gorr.
This flounder was caught, painted
and printed in the "Gyotaku"
technique by Nancy Gorr.

Click to learn
the Gyotaku method
Want to have your fish and eat it too? Try Gyotaku, the Japanese art of fish printing. Gyotaku literally means "fish rubbing," and the technique combines the accuracy of scientific illustration with the expressive composition of Oriental art.
Like individual fingerprints, each sea creature had his own unique characteristics. I searched for the perfect fish specimen to print until the day I caught a scrappy, 14 inch flounder with a bite out of his tail and a long scar across his gills - victim, but also victor over a "gigger" or a denizen of the deep. Although not perfect, he was certainly a worthy fish to print.

Again, in preparation for an exhibit at the North Carolina aquarium, I bought an octopus from a local fish market. After giving the slimy mollusk a sudsy bath in my kitchen sink, I proceeded to print him. The tentacles clung to the rice paper and as I carefully removed them with needle-nose pliers, I absent-mindedly started to count; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...oops! The little fellow had only seven arms.

It is because of such uniqueness that many Japanese fisherman use gyotaku. What better way to document size, species and appearance of the "catch of the day?" Fisherman may stretch the truth, but fish prints never lie. In Japan, many fishing contests are decided by gyotaku prints, because photographs do not always express the true size and details of the fish.

Gyotaku is believed to have been devised in the Tokugawa Era (1600-1868) by samurai warriors living in the mountainous Yamagata Prefecture of northern Japan. This area is still a haven for fisherman. In addition to requiring such traditional skills as judo and kendo, Yamataga's feudal lords demanded that their warriors be skilled in fishing. The ideal samurai excelled not only in the military arts but in the fine arts, a concept summed up in the word "bunbu" meaning "culture" and "militia," mind and body. The oldest existing fish print is a red sea bream done in 1862.

In 1955, Japanese printers formed a group called "gyotaku-no kai" (friends of fish printing) who in recent years have remarkably improved the technique. The late Janet Roemhild Canning, the first expert American fish printer and illustrator of fishes for the Smithsonian Institution, worked closely with the leader of this group, Yoshio Hiyana. With the publication in 1964 of his guide to the subject, gyotaku came to the United States. In 1976, the U.S. Nature Printing Society was formed, and an explosion practitioners followed. During the NPS's 1987 workshop in Hawaii, Yoshihiko Takahashi taught his variation using brilliant oil colors. Takahashi considers gyotaku an ancient and honorable art.

There are two methods of fish printing.

The "indirect" method is done with a very thin rice paper molded to the fish and
then inked. And the "direct" method is the following:

MATERIALS REQUIRED
• One fresh fish (a defrosted one from the freezer is also acceptable)
• Newspaper or rice paper
• Ink, watercolor, tempera or acrylic paint
• Soft-haired brushes
• Detergent or salt
• Rags or paper towels
• Straight pins


METHOD
1. Clean the fish with the detergent and water, or use salt if the meat will be eaten.
2. Position the fins and secure them with the pins (some printers use modeling clay also.)
3. Brush paint or ink (not too thick) stroking from head to tail leaving the eye blank.
4. Clean the brush of excess paint and brush in the opposite direction from the tail to head. Fish scales are like roofing tiles, and this brushing catches the color along their layered edges.
5. Place paper very carefully on top of the fish and gently rub the entire fish with your fingers. Try not to move the paper for its original contact or double images may result.
6. Gently lift the paper from the fish.
7. Paint in the eye.
   
The fish can be re-inked and more prints made for as long as it, and the printer, remain fresh. Prints should be treated like any other work of art on paper. They may be mounted, matted or framed under glass.

Gyotaku is a process simple enough for the beginner to get immediate satisfaction but challenging enough to provide years of enjoyable experimentation. It can be a fanciful and beautiful way of displaying the catches of a fisherman. There are so many different kinds of fish out there to print.

Now go catch a BIG ONE!

- Nancy Gorr





   
 

 
       
 
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