Gyotaku (fish printing) Seahunter style

Justin Smith (aka seahunter) recently made a fish print of a hali for me that generated some requests for a tutorial.

Look at how sweet his little face came out...



Fortunately, earlier this spring Justin came up and made a print of Jelly's 21.7 pound Mendo monster.  I took a bunch of  pics of the process with the intent of doing a tutorial.  Keep in mind that I took the pics, but Justin is the artist that really knows what's up.  Hopefully he will chime in with the important details I am sure to forget. 

That said this is a pretty detailed technique, but if carefully executed, will produce some gorgeous art worth framing...after a little practice.  Plan on doing several to many attempts before getting a keeper...just like fishing!

Start out by de-sliming the fish by wiping it down thoroughly with a lot of paper towels...



Next, lift the operculum and de-slime the gills...



Now transfer your fish to a newspaper-covered work station.  Continue your battle against slime and ooze.  Pack the gills with paper towels and crazy glue the operculum closed.  This will prevent slime from getting squished out and ruining your print...



Prevent the fish from pooping on the print.  Glue the bootay shut...



Keep the fins erect by pinning them up.  Do so by lifting the fin, and inserting a heavy straight pin into the fin parallel to the first fin ray, and then pushing it deep into the body...



Support the pinned fins with blocks of modeling clay...



Spread and smooth the tail...



Remove the eye.  Removing the eye makes it possible to get a good crisp print of the eye orbit.  This minor detail will make the print pop...



Prevent eye-hole ooze by packing it with more paper towel...



Almost ready! 



This is a good time to stop and bullshit.  Feel free to begin drinking if you haven't started already.  Also its time to get your inks ready.  Pour black Japanese sumi ink into a few containers.  We used keg cups.  Then make a series of dilutions that will give you a range of colors from black (100%) to light gray (heavily diluted). Use the various shades to paint your fish.  Light on the stomach, transitioning to darker gray on the back, black for the stripes etc.

Paint the fish with ink...



Once painted, get a broad, soft, dry brush and lightly blend and feather all of the various inks.  Use long gentle strokes against the grain of the scales.  Going against the grain will make the ink pile up under the scales, which will make them print more distinctly...



Gently place nice quality paper onto the fish and begin rubbing.  It is important to keep track of where you have rubbed.  Under-rubbing will result in light or un-printed areas.  Over-rubbing will result in a smeary mess.  Make sure to do the back and stomach in long straight arcs or your fish will have wavy edges. It is crucial to keep the paper from moving or it will smear like crazy.



Capture the key details.  The details are the key to a sweet print.  Get the fins, the eye orbit, the tail etc...

 



Cross your fingers and gently lift the paper.  The final detail...carefully paint the eye by hand. 

From Justin's gallery...the finished fish:

Wow!  Nice tutorial, Sean.  You covered some details I'd never heard or read before.

This is a t-shirt worthy article.  I vote that it be posted up on the home page.


Randy

Wow!  Nice tutorial, Sean.  You covered some details I'd never heard or read before.

This is a t-shirt worthy article.  I vote that it be posted up on the home page.


Randy

I second that vote. You did a fantastic job with the tutorial. I think it is 'Hoody' worthy!!!!!

This is a t-shirt worthy article.  I vote that it be posted up on the home page.

That's up to papa...right now I'm just trying to avoid getting banned 

Hopefully Justin will post some pics of the finished striper, which I don't have.  It came out SWEET.

thats SWEET!!!! i wannna see the finished product!!!

Very nice. Thanks Sean and Justin!

Mad skillz and patience.  Can't wait to see the finished product.

Sweet! Will have to make some prints when I get some worthy fish... actually any clean fish would be nice! Any special paper needed? Any special weight etc.?

Z

scwa thanks for taking the time to start this thread you did an excellent job describing the process.  I use kozo paper which is commonly called rice paper in the states.  However it is actually made from mulberry bark.  There are many different types of kozo some are too thick and some are too thin for fish printing.  I like to use paper that has a similar strength and thickness to a one dollar bill.  On really big fish muslin cloth works OK.  Here is Jelly's monster. 

Thanks for the nice tutorial and sharing the quality images, guys.  I took a first crack at printing last year and this is just the motivation to get back at it.

Thanks Justin!  I imbedded the final product in the tutorial too.

There are 2 more steps to add.  Once you have finished your print you may want to mount it to a large piece of water color paper.  This makes the print stronger, allows you to erase some smudges and removes most of the wrinkles on the print.  I use wheat paste (wall paper past) that you can buy from the hardware store.  You can dye it if you want a colored back ground.  then I use a paint roller to apply it to the watercolor paper.  I carefully lay the print on the watercolor paper then I use a rubber roller to roll out all the wrinkles that are still on the paper.  We could not do this with jelly's print because the fish was too big for watercolor paper.   

wheat paste


laying down a print of a burrito grunt


The roller

   


A 25" parrot fish print


The same print, but mounted
 

The last step is to add your stamp.  I carved my stamp from a rubber eraser.

That is sweet!  Do you have an album online of all the prints you have done?  I would like to see more of these.

Very creative. WTG. I'd sport that on a tshirt or hoodie. Heck I'd even frame it put it on my wall. Very nice.

FF