Jim & Judy Vacation III - Gyotaku

If anyone had said I would be stuffing absorbent material into the many varied orifices of a fish within the first two hours of my first class, I might have had a bit more hesitation about signing up! But the 'nurse-y' side of me decided it was not that much different from many lab/work situations so I waded on in!
One of the Santa Barbara folks is a marine biology professor at one of the universities & has a special diving permit that allows (careful) collection of some exotic species. There were coolers of fish & seaweed that provided many oohs & aahs to the experienced folks as they had the opportunity to work with rare & difficult specimens. For my part, a less challenging rock fish was plenty daunting enough (as noted by the fact that someone needed to TELL me it was a common rock fish!--and a good choice for a beginner!).
Preparing your fish for printing really is a serious process (several hours)--but once it's done, the fish can be printed over & over--so we could then trade specimens around & learn more. Some tell tales of freezing & thawing really special specimans over & over--these folks are pretty much NOT the homemaker types, with a freezer full of preserves & spcial pastries!
Here's my story: first you wash your fish--use dish detergent, taking care not to compromise scales, etc. Dry carefully, and then really dry with a careful alcohol bath--suddenly the topography of the fish comes into clear relief. There is some difference of opinion about how the mounting should portray the fish (i.e. fins out for identification, or fins against the body that usually reside there for swimming...definitely something better discussed over happy hour than in class!) but all agree that mounting is key; we used foil-covered insulation sheets--forming a 'cradle' for the body & then platforms to arrange & pin fins, tails. Noses (yes--they have two each), gills & 'poop holes' all need to be stuffed, sometimes repeatedly, as no organic 'material' (yes, that would be snot & poop!) can reside on the print for archival purposes. If you have breakout--there are emergency measures with peroxide to be taken! So the 'stuffed', pinned fish is ready for the final drying phase: blow dryers for as long as it takes. NOW you can start. There are also differences in opinion as to type of inks & use of only black vs. colors; we used permanent oil-based inks, thinned with poppy seed oil, with a variety of colors--and used the 'direct' method. Direct method: ink the specimen and turn the paper front side down on the fish. Indirect method: paper (or cloth) front side up on the specimen and ink or paint is applied, picking up the relief of the object beneath. (Jim did some seahorses & an octupus by the indirect method--see the pictures further down.) The more you ink the fish, the richer the prints become.

Eyes do not really come through in either method--and there are clear opinions re: adding in the eyes after the fact--as the 'soul of the fish' is missing until the eye is added (in the end I was surprised there wasn't a class only on that--as there are many approaches, it turns out!). So here are two prints after eyes have been added. Not bad for first try, first day--but clearly a beginner. Experienced printers then go the next step--adding additional fish, seaweed, background papers that emulate water, etc. (Examples at the end.) Final step is adding the chop (red stamp); most experienced printers have developed their own as a signature; my print has a generic chop that means gyotaku. Mineo, the Japanese expert that comes regularly, is known worldwide for his skills as a nature printer--so he gets called to print anything rare & exotic that appears. This summer he did an 88 ft print of a giant squid; he's also done orcas, whale flukes, horses, etc.
Probably more than you EVER cared to know about the how-to's but this is NOT your elementary school fish print t-shirt; I truly have a great appreciation now for some of the wonderful prints I've seen without recognizing the skill involved.