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Artist: Deep Hawaii Art
Title: "Victoriaʻs Kawakawa" Tuna Gyotaku
Medium: Original acrylic, watercolor and PrismaColors and ink pen on Rice paper. Kristin created a special background with watercolors using the Japanese artform of Urauchi or wetmounting. Framed in black
Size: Framed size 31" x 48 3/4"
Lāna`i artist Kristin Belew painstakingly painted this life-size Gyotaku original of a Skipjack Tuna using acrylics, watercolors, PrismaColors, and ink pen.
Gyotaku is a traditional Japanese style of fish printing where each original piece of art is taken right from the fish. Kristin applies acrylic paint to the actual fish then presses rice paper onto the specimen to receive the paint. She then adds in details! Each fish is eaten or used for bait afterwards.
Fun facts from Kristin:
"This species of tuna(Euthynnus affinis,) is known as Kawakawa in Hawaiian (pronounced Kava-kava.) We often find these fish “boiling” or in a feeding frenzy near bait balls or highly concentrated groups of smaller bait fish. Since there are so many hungry fish in one area, we often catch more than one. These tuna have crazy, colorful, shiny striped patterns on their anterior dorsal side. These tuna have very dark red meat, are rich in flavor and are is a favorite fish to many people in Hawaii! This was Victoria’s first ocean catch and her husband wanted to commemorate the occasion! I included the exact lure that was used to catch this beauty too!"
Category: Deep Hawaii Art
