Chops Printing

The final step for our Gyotaku prints was adding our chops to the prints. In some Asian cultures, men and women had their own chop (similar to a seal) which they used to identify artwork they owned (sort of like how we put our names on our assignments!)

When the piece was sold or given away, the new owner would add his or her chop to the art. That's why, when you look at Asian art in museums, you will often see a vertical line of red printed symbols. Those are chops and a history of who has owned that particular piece of art.

We made our chops in the classroom using squares cut from egg cartons. We had to remember to make a mirror image of what we wanted the chop to look like.

BW holds up her finished chop, all ready to use for printing.

Mrs. Ryan demonstrates how to add the chop to our artwork.

Rolling the red ink out on the plexiglass with the brayer.

GCD makes a practice print - perfect!

More practice - we want them to look beautiful!

EP seems to have the printing process perfected.

Time for the real printing - we were a little nervous. AM, GH, EP, and JB.

JS and PH do one more practice print.

JR, who is studying Mandarin Chinese, made his name in Chinese characters. Here he shows off the final product - Gyotaku with a personal chop applied.