Bluegill II

I'm still plodding away with my gyotaku project and have all kinds of fish from the weird to the wonderful.  These little bluegills are found all over North America and I love the shape and size - pan size and very good eating I'm told.

I did a study of them to work out colours and composition.  The paper was pretty absorbent - Okawara - so I thought I'd take it to the next level and really add a shot of colour. I flooded the surface with a highly pigmented wash of watercolour in various colours that complement the natural colours of these fish.  Its as if they're swimming in a dream world now and I rather like the outcome.  The print below is the original study print with a small amount of colour added.

The paper was still damp when I took this image so it will be slightly more subdued when dry.

Experimentation is what this project is all about after all and testing the abilities of Japanese papers. I'm quite amazed at their strength when wet.  The papers have a perceived fragility when you pick them up as they're so lightweight and flexible, and, like most papers, are fragile when wet.  However, I can put a lot of water and manipulate paint on them very well without the paper or the print breaking down.

Japanese papers vary so much in type and price.  They're not cheap papers which is why I often work out pieces as studies first on newsprint or cheap mulberry paper before I pull out something more expensive.  I would recommend people try some Japanese paper if they can access it.  Its a unique experience and has so many possibilities.   My source for good quality paper is The Japanese Paper Place in Toronto.

And now for a quick smile from one of the more different fish that I am printing.  This is a smile from an ocean pout.  I was given this fish and didn't realize it had quite the set of teeth til I started prepping it for printing.  The fish is about 16 inches long and rather like a cross between a sculpin and an eel with a big bony head.  I'm rapidly getting over my fear of strange and weird fish that, in the past, would have had me in the horrors.

and some more fish - though stylised

Digital play with the lino below

lino cut

digital experiment

I've been working with a couple of students doing linoprints and decided to have a play myself - it's not something I do very often as I prefer collagraphs as they are more painterly.

Before it gets messy I thought I'd scan the lino into the computer and then of course couldn't resist playing with the image in Photoshop. I think I can do more with this.

Over the weekend I hope to make time to have a go at printing it in oil paints. I'm not so interested in straight roll up prints but may do some later. I like the potential of colour changes with using oils and the brush marks and textures that happen.

It might work to have a shoal of them, or a line of 3 or 5 - lots of room for experimenting.

Sam's book is progressing well but recent illustrations haven't been water so I haven't shown them here. I thought it was high time that I appeared with some water related work :>)

A fishy project

  Ocean Perch on kitakata paper

As part of my plans for 2010, I applied for a grant, heart in mouth.  I was lucky enough to receive it and for the full amount, as often amounts are reduced to spread the wealth a bit further.

My project is to produce a body of work in gyotaku (fish rubbing) using species found in Newfoundland waters.  I will also be offering a workshop next spring to share what I have learned with other artists. I applied for a longer project time frame because working full time, I need sufficient time to produce work to the quality that I want instead of feeling rushed. 

I'll be experimenting with various Japanese and traditional papers to determine the best for gyotaku as well as backgrounds and techniques. I have feelers out to various fishermen who can supply me with fresh fish and oddities of the sea.

Today, which was a holiday for me, I started experimenting with a local ocean perch, also known as red fish, that I had in the freezer.  I love the patterning on the gill plate of these fish even if they do have pretty spiky fins.  I have a sampler of Japanese papers as well as newsprint and masa that I worked the initial prints with.   I love the Japanese papers!  They are so soft and flexible, especially when dampened and the two that I used, kitakata and chiri printed beautifully.

 Red fish prints

I'm currently researching and accessing a variety of papers  and best techniques for using them to print and am looking forward to the project unfolding and seeing what the ocean will provide for me to print.  I have the seed of Part II of this project in my head which may need another grant to fulfill.  Time will tell.

The remains of the day

On Saturday I gave a workshop on gyotaku for a local art association.  I initially wondered how I would fill the time, but its funny how I always think that prior to workshops, then at the time wish that there was extra time to do all the things that I had planned.  And this time it was no different.

This was my first time using squid to print with and, despite the little tentacles clinging to everything and being a bit 'ewwwwww' to me, they did produce some interesting shapes and textures.  I didn't have a lot of time to play with them during the class but will as soon as I have some time.

The demonstration that I did at the workshop was a capelin, enhanced with watercolour. I  started some demo work on a print over aa background but ran out of time, so its in limbo right now, waiting to push ahead or be relegated to the never never drawer.

 

 

One of the workshop participants brought in a large salted cod to print.  Salt fish is a Newfoundland tradition and goes back to times when salt was the preserving agent to keep fish and meat edible over the winter once dried.  Its still very common here, but is an acquired taste, not one that I've ever really become fond of.

However, because of the large size and complex texture of the flattened fish, I suggested using some coloured tissue paper to print on and it worked well.  Unfortunately, the mustardy yellow of the tissue doesn't show well in this photo, but the fish shape is classic Newfoundland tradition still seen in rural Newfoundland.

Finally, the true remains of the day.  The little capelin that did yeoman service during the day will have a last run at prints tomorrow, then off to the compost along with some left over squid bodies and tentacles.

More details and images from the workshop are posted on my blog Illustrated Life.

Seeing spots

Trout in progress watercolour, pen & ink

Crop showing pointillism

Progress, watercolour and start of pen and ink overlay

When you have a fish with dark pigment on it what else could you call it but Spot? When you add pen and ink in pointillism it reinforces the name.

I have been submerged in fish lately from prints to paintings as well as other elements of life that have taken over a bit including a shoulder problem that's made painting a bit challenging this week.

This particular piece started out as a study for planned piece. I want to experiment with some watercolour pours and add either fish prints or paintings to the full sheet. So I was seeing how a painting of a fish would look and it seemed to take on a life of its own.

Trout are fairly covered with minute black spots and larger areas of darker pigmentation. I started out in watercolour but it didn't give me the detail that I wanted. I pulled out a .25 Rapidograph pen and started adding tiny dots to create shading and the pigmentation. This method of working is very time consuming but I greatly enjoy it and it becomes almost soothing to sit there dotting away for ages.

I also laid my hands on a few bottles of irridescent acrylic ink and added tiny touches of this to the watercolour wash. I don't want the piece to be completely shiny and artificial looking, just make the viewer wonder if its their eye or is it really a little irridescent.

This is a piece in progress as I haven't completed the ink or the watercolour layers yet and will continue to slowly build them.

A friend's pond full of expensive koi carp was hit by deep ice and cold and a number of the fish died and were presented to me half frozen in a bag one evening last week. I haven't had a chance to do much with them this week, but they look promising as the scale pattern is so pronounced on the carp. I took one print but the fish wasn't thawed enough so the ice melted a little even after drying the skin and interfered with the ability to get a clear print.

I've continued to work on the original fish prints that I made with a rainbow trout and am creating both cards and paintings with them.


They seem to bring out a looser side of me and using brighter colours and abstract shapes is very freeing, even if going back to detail always appeals to me.

Its another part of Watermarks that I am grateful for - the push to experimentation and exploration. Thank you!

Tickling trout

I finally tracked down a rainbow trout to practice some more gyotaku with. It was like hitting paydirt. You'd never think a fish would be so difficult to find in this city! At least one that you didn't need a second mortgage to afford.

It took me awhile to get the hang of it and I used a lot of newsprint initially as I didn't want to waste good printing paper til I was happy with my ability to lift a half decent print from the fish.

Because its a three dimensional object that you're working with, its very easy to blur the lines and lose definition of the scales or fins.

I tried a couple of prints on cardstock to use as greeting cards then enhanced them with watercolour. I like the results as the fish wrap around the card making unique pieces.

After taking some prints and playing with colours and papers, the fishy smell was enough and I washed it off and wrapped it for the fridge to try again tomorrow. The shelf life of a fish isn't long, so can either use it for a few days or freeze and refreeze to prolong my ability to use this model. I think it will be the former as I imagine the solidity and skin texture of the fish would deteriorate after a few freezings and thawings.

Edited: I've enhanced a couple more of the prints, or half prints to give an idea at high resolution what they look like.

Fish printing - gyotaku

Capelin print

5.5 x 7 ink

Last week Robyn Sinclair sent me a link about fish printing. I'd never heard of it before and was fascinated by the process. This Japanese method of creating prints from a real fish is called gyotoku. Gyotaku basically means 'fish rubbing' in Japanese. The fish prints (commonly called fish rubbings) are the mirror image of one side of the fish, each characteristic of the fish is recorded - every scale and fin's reflection is transferred to the paper.

The most popular form of Gyotaku fish art is called the direct method. The fish print is created by rubbing a piece paper on the side of an inked fish. The fish eye is painted by hand after the rubbing is made. Only a few high quality prints can be made from each fish and each fish prints is unique.

Living on an island you'd think it would be easy to find a fish, wouldn't you? Not quite so, at least on a Sunday. You can read about that on my blog.

Despite not having the appropriate fish to hand, I made do with what I did have and tried a couple of prints tonight and have to say that, even though there is a distinct fishy smell in my studio, I love the results and the possibilities are endless for this process.

Here is the little capelin having been inked. I used a brush to apply the ink and I figured a brayer would just squash him into oblivion. I then experimented with a few types of paper. I had a lightweight print paper, almost translucent but found that it absorbed too much moisture and blurred the belly of the fish. The secret seems to be to wrap or gently mold the paper around the fish to get a print. Perhaps I was a little heavy handed on the first couple of tries.

Next I used Somerset printing paper and that worked beautifully, if not a little difficult to press against the fish as it was much heavier.

My final paper was a scrap of yupo which turned out better than I anticipated, but a little paler than the others.

Despite the lack of fish quality, it worked in my favour in some ways. The fish curves make it alive even in death, mimicking the movement through water.

Capelin print on Yupo

Its ice fishing season and I'd like to get a little trout to experiment with and once I can get the time to get to the market, I'll find some other fish to practice with. Meanwhile I will be adding other mediums and colours to some of these prints to see what I can come up with. A lovely mottled watercolour background perhaps or one of the sheets of that lovely handmade journal that I bought.

Experiments are such fun, even if The Other One thinks that I've lost it when he asked what on earth I was doing to the fish.