The "A Fish to make you Smile" Story

My wife Carol with granddaughter Courtney

It was an ordinary day.  Cleaning the shelves on the second floor when I picked up the print that my granddaughter Courtney made for Carol and me a few years ago.  Looked at it for a few minutes and decided to give her a call and talk to her about it.  She knows that we love artwork and wanted to contribute to our collection that we have hanging in our home.  The print she made resembled the two Gyotaku prints that we have on our walls.  Gyotaku is the art and technique of Japanese fish rubbing, a process derived from an ancient printing method used before photography was invented.  It was originally done to document the size and species of fish that was caught by Japanese anglers.  In fact, fish prints were so accurate that some fishing contests were determined by Gyotaku prints.  Naturally, an actual fish is used and paper is placed over the fish and the outer surface of the paper is gently rubbed by the fingers or the hand.  The paper is then separated from the fish body and a fine impression of the fish is obtained.  Hand-made paper is used and high quality lithographic inks or watercolors add color to the Gyotaku print.  I wrote a story a few years ago on my blog about my attempts to make a Gyotaku print with a fish I had purchased at the Giant grocery store.  You can read it by clicking on the "Arts and Crafts" link at the top of this story.  Well, my granddaughter was so anxious to talk to me about it and it gave her a chance to relive her art class experience from two years ago.  What she did was similar to Gyotaku, but her teacher had purchased hard rubber, flat fish patterns for the project.  She placed her piece of paper that resembles hand-made paper over the mold and used tempera paints and a hard rubber roller to make her artwork.  She did a beautiful job and it is very similar to the other Gyotaku prints I have.  And I also will admit it is much better that the print that I tried to make years ago.  I want to publicly thank her for such a nice job.  Thanks, Courtney!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  

A Gyotaku Print

Courtney's fish print she made for Carol and me.