Of Gyotaku, Real and Artificial

The number of gyotaku posts here are all out of proportion to the actual number of prints I have pulled. I am actually far more interested in making drawings of the fish than in pulling prints of them. "Ah," you say, "then why are you polluting the internet with all of your fancy fish rubbings when you could be showing us drawings?" Fair enough; here are two examples of "fish rubbings" as you so condescendingly refer to them.

This first one is perhaps a bit of a cheat - so maybe a little of your smarty pants-ness is warranted. This is a flounder that I bought for use in some of my classes (the kids don't always do so well with real fish - there are things like guts and eyeballs to consider). It's rubber. Okay!? So I made the print of my rubber fish on one side of transparent paper, painted the reverse side of the paper gold, cut the whole thing out and glued it to a fresh sheet of paper. I rather liked the result.

These lovely fish are golden shiners that I caught while fishing for bluegill. They're pretty much giant minnows. But they are very beautiful and if I had it to do again I would try to catch their color like I did here. Regardless, I think this is a successful print.

So here you are, an actual drawing of a fish. This is the prince of fishes, that most delicious of panfish, the majestic bluegill. For me, bluegill is what I call almost all of those fish that other people call brim or bream. They are quite beautiful in their own right and great fighters on light tackle.

And here we go with a little woodcut of a fish. Actually it's a tetra that I used to have in my fish tank. I often take some time to draw the fish that make it into my tanks. This one was a great model. It stayed very still for me the whole time. Probably because it was dead. That's the way it is sometimes. We artists have to be a hard-hearted lot when it comes to our fish drawings. We don't have to kill the little guys, but we must be willing to take advantage of the opportunity when it arises.