But don’t worry, it needn’t cost an arm and a leg to have some nice art that subtly reflects your passion for fishing. I just created one with a little help—I’m lying, it was a lot of help—from my friend Wanda and I think it looks great. You can do it, too, with a little practice. And once you’re mastered the technique there’s no limit to the creativity you can bring to this artistic form.

The formal name of the process is Gyotaku, a Japanese term. Roughly speaking, it boils down to this: “gyo” is fish and “taku” is rubbing. I just call it Japanese fish printing. The art form began in the 1880s as a way for Japanese fishermen to record their catch. They used newsprint and ink. Modern techniques haven’t changed much. Wanda learned the art form when she lived in Japan and uses a cheap rice paper that Japanese calligraphers practice on, along with water-soluble acrylic paint.

First, catch a fish. That’s the hardest part. Actually, you can skip that step if you have a good fish market nearby that carries fresh specimens of whatever you want to print. Regardless of where you obtain your fish, it needs to be cleaned up a bit. There’s nothing quite so weird as an attractive piece of art on the wall that smells like rotten fish. Use a diluted mixture of water and dishwashing (fishwashing?) detergent to gently remove the slime that coats the fish. The object is get the slime off without losing any of the scales that give the print its wonderful detail. Dry the fish and you’re ready to make a print.

I had a nice chunky sea trout for my specimen. We laid it on the fish cleaning table on some old newspaper, then began painting it thoroughly with diluted black acrylic paint that produced a dark gray print. You can use any color paint you wish—tell your wife you’re complementing the living room color scheme—and you can even mix and match colors once you know what you’re doing to achieve stripes and speckles if that’s what you want.

Once your fish is thoroughly covered with a light coat of paint—you don’t want it to be running or puddling anywhere—gently lower a piece of rice paper or tissue paper onto the fish and begin to smooth it over the fish’s contours. You don’t want the paper to slide around and blur the image. When the image has been captured, lift the paper straight up to avoid any slipping or sliding. It takes a deft touch to capture the dorsal and ventral fins and you’ll doubtless mess up something on the first try, but don’t worry. The paper and paint are cheap and one fish is good for multiple prints. Just wipe off the old paint with a paper towel—carefully, to avoid damaging the scales—and try again until you get it right. Once you have a print you like, all you need do is hang it up to dry, then take it to your local frame shop for matting and framing. Depending on how thin your paper is, the matting process may result in fine little wrinkles or even fairly large wrinkles. That’s okay, that’s characteristic of this art form.