Gyotaku

Last Friday I had a parent come in my class to do Gyotaku art with my students. They had so much fun learning about the Japanese culture, different kinds of fish, and creatively painting their fish prints with water colors. The parent brought in about 7 fish from the fish market that morning. Some of the fish he brought were Mahi Mahi, Monchong, and Ahi. He first taught the students about the history of Gyotaku and how it's a part of the Japanese culture. Then he talked to them about the different fish that he brought and highlighted the different characteristics of the fish. Last, he went through the whole fish printing process with the students and showed them a bunch of examples of his own artwork. Once he was done with all the instruction the students worked together to make the fish prints. It was really neat to watch my students help each other paint the fish. Each of them would also help each other grab a side of the paper and set it down perfectly on the fish to make a clean print. It was interesting to see the kids who were a bit scared to touch the fish so they were standing off to the side not very excited about touching fish. Then I saw the other kids tell them how cool it was and talked them into making a fish print. My students really enjoyed this art lesson and I thought they learned a lot from it. After they were done printing they got to sit and paint their prints using water colors. Even thought this didn't leave the best smell in my classroom my students had a lot of fun and impressed me with how much they knew about fish.