Hand Printed Gyotaku Anglesey Crab

Hand Printed Gyotaku Anglesey CrabCrab is quite a difficult specimen to print from. Like a lobster it's much more 3 dimensional than a fish so there is a lot of work to do making things don't slip and slide around. This crab is printed on Chinese Mulberry Paper, measuring 50x34cm approximately. After printing, the paper is then mounted using the traditional wet mounting technique of uruachi. For this I make a flour based glue and use this to bond the print to a second sheet of paper.

each fish is printed individually so this is actually 11 individual prints on the same sheet of paper

I glue the first sheet to the second sheet on a board and during this process the print can be completely flattened ready to be framed

I have used premium quality black acrylic ink

The same fish has been printed here 4 times and one of the fish has been printed across two separate sheets of paper to make the diptych

the definition you get on the scales is wonderful

he was clearing down his bait tanks on the Menai and had pulled out half a dozen prawns and a pollock

The next stage is to varnish the print to the board

Manchester

each fish is printed individually so this is actually 10 individual prints on the same sheet of paper

I've printed the same prawn here three times onto an A4 sheet of Chinese calligraphy paper using and dark blue and gold ink

This one was supplied by The Menai Seafood Company

then mixed digitally with some of my watercolour work