魚拓（ぎょたく）
(Fish Impressions or Fish Printing)
魚拓 developed first as a way to prove a "big" fish tale. Fish, after being caught, were often wrapped in materials such as paper to be carried home from where they had been caught or purchased. Minerals in the water or from the soil where the fish had been lain, acted as pigments to leave impressions of the fish on the material they were wrapped in. Gyotaku is one type of printmaking in Japan in which monoprints are created (single prints) as opposed to woodblock printing such as ukiyo-e prints where hundreds of prints can be pulled from the same printing blocks.
Ballard High School students making gyotaku mono-prints:
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
(Fish Impressions or Fish Printing)
魚拓 developed first as a way to prove a "big" fish tale. Fish, after being caught, were often wrapped in materials such as paper to be carried home from where they had been caught or purchased. Minerals in the water or from the soil where the fish had been lain, acted as pigments to leave impressions of the fish on the material they were wrapped in. Gyotaku is one type of printmaking in Japan in which monoprints are created (single prints) as opposed to woodblock printing such as ukiyo-e prints where hundreds of prints can be pulled from the same printing blocks.
Ballard High School students making gyotaku mono-prints:
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
