Gyotaku

[Jimbo]

Don't know if anyone ever heard about this before. I'd never heard it before, let alone knew what it meant. I was at a friend's house over the weekend and he showed me some prints he had done of fish he had caught. The process is called Gyotaku which means fish printing or fish rubbing. It's really awesome how it turns out. Basically what happens is they get the slime off your catch and dry it. Then they paint one side of the fish and then take paper or cloth and lay it on. Then without sliding the material they rub or press it down on over the entire painted side getting basically an impression of the fish. I did some checking and there are people who do it in color, but in black and white the final result is something that almost looks like a negative of something prehistoric at the same timeobviously the species it was, but the fish's outline, fins and scales are most definitely pronounced. If anyone's interested you can search it pretty easily.