Gyotaku: The art of fish printing.

Written by internationally renowned traditional Gyotaku artist, Dwight Huang. Visit his website at www.fishingforgyotaku.com

As fishermen, we are some of the few people who feel the intense pride of landing a trophy fish just to be confronted with the idea of ripping it apart to become a delicious meal. While that is the main part of chase, it would be nice to capture the catch in all its glory. Yes, you can snap a picture, but does it really capture the size and feeling that the fish brought us? Not really. Then there is taxidermy which for me is a bit too expensive and either consists of dead fish skin wrapped around foam or in the case of most fish, is a painted replica of what you caught. Personally the thought of a whole dead fish or a big plastic fish hanging on my wall just doesn’t do it. If there was only a more artistic way to capture your fish, allow you to get hands on and create more memories around a already memorable catch.

Gyotaku artist Dwight Hwang applies ink to a fish after supporting it for printing.

Enter Gyotaku. This method, developed by the Japanese in the Mid 1800’s is based on various different ways to print your catch directly onto paper in an artistic fashion. There are rumors that the Samurai began this tradition by catching fish and having their calligraphers record it. One of these clever calligraphers decided that instead of just writing about it, they would capture it in its original form. The tradition then grew more wide spread as the fish markets and mongers found this to be a easier way to advertise their catch then writing out a menu, not because it is an easy art, but because a large portion of the population they where selling too could not read.

While there are three different forms of gyotaku, the most common method is Chokusetsu-ho. This method is based on laying and supporting the fish in a desired position and applying paints directly to the skin. Then, dampened rice paper is applied to the skin to absorb the paints and capture the beauty and accurately preserve the size and detail of your catch.

Here, with the help of his wife, Dwight presses rice paper over the ink covered fish.

Gyotaku prints can vary from a simple black and white side profile relief, to a more colorful and artistic adaptation to include a natural movement to depict action. Artists also will print plant life or smaller fish and animals from the subjects environment to give the painting more depth and add to the story of the catch they are printing.

After assuring the paper has been pressed on the desired areas, Dwight lifts the paper away to reveal his print.