How to print a Gyotaku step by step

Today we’ll show you how to print a gyotaku, which is a printmaking technique that Japanese fishermen began to use around 1800, more or less. When they caught a fish, before reaching the port, often right there in the boat, they’d ink the fish they’d caught and then, with rice paper, they’d make a print which once in the port, they’d use so people would know what kind of fish they’d caught, the size, and so on. Today we’re going to do one with a little tunny. You can use any kind of fish or crustacean. To finish preparing it, what we’ll do is spread out the fins to give it this more realistic look. And to do so… I have needles…

01:02 - Also here, at the mouth, I’ve used a toothpick to make it stay open. These fins are rigid, so I don’t need to do anything to them. Now the next step is the inking. It’s done with ink, In my case I’ve used this cuttlefish ink. It’s a bit thick, so you have to dilute it with water until you have a good consistency for putting it on the fish. The amount of ink is also something that you learn from experience, from doing many prints, because if you don’t use enough ink it doesn’t work, and if you use too much you get black stains, because rice paper is very thin and if it’s too wet, it gets stained.

01:53 - Cuttlefish ink is good because it’s an edible ink, so when we’re done we can eat the fish. Now we’ll remove the excess ink, wherever we see there’s too much. Let’s print one. The first try will tell us if we’re on the right track or if there’s too much ink or too little. The rice paper has two sides. There’s one that’s shinier and one that’s rougher, which is the side we’ll use to make the print. Here it dried very quickly. Here too. Now we’ll repeat the process. Depending on the kind of fish, you have to repeat it more times or fewer because it’s important that the ink soaks in a bit in order to get a nice texture, so we don’t only get a big black spot.

02:59 - There are a few places where there’s too much ink, but it’s starting to show a texture… that looks better. Some fish are more difficult to print than others, this one for example, because its skin is very smooth and hard. In Japanese, gyo is fish, and taku means to rub. So gyotaku comes from this kind of printmaking, from rubbing the fish. The only thing one doesn’t paint is the eye, because since it’s gelatinous, it doesn’t take the ink. So, we paint the eye afterwards, and it makes it look more life-like. We’ve printed the gyotaku exactly how they used to do it in Japan. Then there are people who touch up the print, or add colour… what I do in the workshops I teach is gyotaku pure and simple, which only involves printing the fish, like we just did, with ink, and afterwards adding the eye, the way the Japanese used to do it. .