Gyotaku

Part of the 2022 NZ Hoffman Challenge collection featuring Gyotaku fish

Gyotaku is an ancient Japanese printing method where the printing plate is a real fish. it was originally used by Japanese fishermen to record their catch. In the piece above the large kahawai fish have been printed on cotton and appliqued to the background. The fish was stuffed in the gill and body cavity area (where the guts were removed) with paper towels. it was stabilised by cutting a cavity approximately the size of the fish in a piece of Styrofoam ( so that the fish did not roll during printing. Acrylic paint was then applied to the body of the fish and cotton fabric pushed well over all nooks and crannies of the fish to transfer the impressions of the gills, fins, eye etc. These areas were further enhanced with stitch in black cotton. Although not so visible in this print, some prints will even reveal the patterns of the scales. I have tried gyotaku printing with mullet but their shape is not as appealing as the kahawai when printed. My husband is a keen fisherman but even so I often have to resort to purchasing whole fish at the supermarket when I want to carry out this sort of printing

The background has been painted with diluted acrylic and texture yarns have been used for the sea plants. The small reef fish have been made from shapes of organza stuffed with silver fabric. If you look very carefully you may be able to pick out the sea anemones that are strings of beads in clusters.

The requirements for the Hoffman challenge were that it must feature the challenge fabric - this is the reef fabric at the bottom, and fit within a metre square but not be square or rectangular

In this example the fish were direct printed onto a piece of eco dyed fabric which was too wet to give good impressions on the leaves. They were then outline stitched and the piece free motion quilted in a wavy pattern