Fish Prints

Gyotaku

(gyo = fish & taku = impression)

 

Today we created fish prints.

"Gyotaku" is the ancient Japanese folk art of painting fish. The first Gyotaku were created to preserve the true record and size of species caught by Japanese anglers as far back as 1862. We used a tilapia for our prints as well as brighter colors than typically used.

 First we looked at the fish and talked about what we saw, felt, smelled and knew already. NO, we did not taste him but we did have fish sticks for lunch :) 

 Then we painted him ... washing in between each child's turn so they had a fresh slate to color as they chose. 

At our closing circle we reviewed what we had learned and saw and the kids shared their experiences:

• "I put colors on it" Ariana
• "and me do it, we did it, I did it! I painted the fish!" Jackson who was very excited
• "it had fins to help it swim in the ocean" Maya
• "I liked the juicy eye ~ it was cool and we got to touch the mouth" Colin 
• "yeh" Oliver who was not to sure about today's activity
• "paint it green" Leesy
• "He had a-lot of teeth and it was huge and he was dead. He was staying at the grocery store, he died. The tilapia one" ~ Lulu 
• "I touched the mouth and teeth" Gwen
• "paint the fish" Camelia