Yesterday was the day we did our Gyotaku - an ancient scientific method of preserving specimens for study and, more recently, a Japanese art form. We had six octopus from an Asian grocery to use for our printing project.
At first, the kids were a bit hesitant to touch their animals.
But they soon warmed up and were grabbing their octopi out of the bags and preparing for the inking process.
We carefully laid our animals out on paper and dried them with paper towels.
Tentacles needed to be untwisted and artfully arranged.
JS discovered that the suckers on the tentacles still had suction!
After carefully arranging the octopi, we used brayers (and fingers!) to ink the animals' bodies.
Brayers worked best on the larger parts of the octopi.
Mrs. Ryan, our Art teacher, helped us with the project by loaning us her room and supplies. She even got to help with the printmaking, too!
The children worked in groups of four and five.
When the inking was done, we had to put tiny bits of paper over any stray ink marks so that they did not transfer to the rice paper during the printing process.
A close up of an inked octopus and the small bits of paper covering the stray marks.
After each octopus was thoroughly inked from head to tentacle tip, we laid rice paper over it and patted gently to transfer the ink from the animal to the paper.
It took two people to lift the completed print off the octopus - this helped prevent smearing the inked picture.
JB and AH hold up their finished print and are ready to take it to the drying tables.
We will let our Gyotaku dry over night and then add our chops tomorrow. These will be displayed for Parent/Teacher Conferences - they'll be mounted on rail board and hanging in the hallways!
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