How big did you say he was?
watercolor by Barry Singer
THANKS ...Respect and gratitude to the Japanese people for beginning the traditional art form of GYOTAKU. GYO means fish, TAKU means print, rubbing, or impression. It's pronounced ghe-yo-tah-koo. Early Japanese used this method of recording the size and type of their catch. It wasn't long before they realized that the images were beautiful art. The two most ancient examples known are gittheads from 1862 at the EDO era. These pieces were created by a samurai worrior and are kept at the HONMA Museum in SAKATA, Japan. To this day GYOTAKU is popular in Japan.
Here is a Gyotaku print being pulled using the direct method:
A well cleaned black seabass is coated with pigment.
Call out the names of the fins as you touch them...dorsal, pelvic, pectoral, anal, caudal.
Pulling an original GYOTAKU! This fish was rinsed off and cooked on the barbecue.From wildlife, to sport, to art, to the picnic table, all in one day.
Gyotaku are the perfect gift. They can be used to decorate lake and beach houses, cabins, porches, art studios, and dens. They bring good luck to kitchens and business offices.
There are over 30,000 kinds of fish. Fossils show that they have been around for millions of years before the first land animals.