Cherry Sweig was on the career...

Cherry Sweig was on the career fast track six years ago. The creative director of a San Diego advertising agency, she was a driven career woman who climbed the agency ladder from production artist. Her turning point came after a two-month trip to Europe and Egypt in 1984, and the starting of a family. When she returned, she began searching for something she could do for herself that was rewarding. Sweig discovered Gyotaku, a Japanese art tradition of making prints of fish. Her work will be showcased April 21 at the 11th annual Day at the Docks sportfishing festival on Point Loma. She was interviewed by Times staff writer G. Jeanette Avent and photographed by Barbara Martin at her studio.

Gyotaku, which means “fish impression,” was developed in the 1800s by Japanese fishermen to record the exact shape and size of their prize catch before the introduction of the camera.

For me, Gyotaku is about preserving the fish as it appeared in life. I do it out of respect for the fish. It’s an alternative to taxidermy and allows the fish to be eaten after it has been printed.

The largest I’ve done was a 10-foot marlin I printed on the dock at the H & M Landing, and the smallest was a koi, about 7 or 8 inches.

I use the direct method, which is primarily a Western technique, that captures line for line the delicate patterns and intricate details of every scale and fin.

I learned through books and through teaching myself hands-on. It just takes a lot of printing practice. I can remember thinking, if I can just get to 100, maybe they’ll start to be good.

I look at my earlier prints, and I can just tell I haven’t pulled the fins out correctly or there’s too much paint on the fish.

The flying fish are probably my forte. That’s why I have an entire shelf for them in my freezer.

Altogether, I have about 300 fish in the freezer and probably 250 different kinds. But the flying fish are the most popular fish I do. They have very delicate wings, and they escape out of the water and actually glide over the surface. They’re trying to get away from bigger fish trying to eat them.

The largemouth bass is one of the most interesting fish to do because you can pick up every scale and fin. I almost get a print every time.

Other fish are more difficult to do, and I have to use special papers, and I waste a lot to get one print.

The albacore, a blue- and silver-striped fish, is a very difficult fish to print. The skin has these minute scales which you can’t see and are difficult to pick up. The same with a shark--a shark has no scales.

I have all these things to deal with in the art form. It becomes a biology study. With the flying fish, the artist has to know how they swim or how they fly to print them.

I’ve seen where people have literally broken the wings to have the wings going up. It would be easier to print, but they don’t swim that way. I want to print the way the fish actually looks in life. They glide, they soar along.

What distinguishes my work is the way I paint the eyes--the expression I capture in the eyes, and the colors I use.

You can’t print the eye, so some artists use the Oriental signature stamp, called the chop, to put the eye in. They have an eye carved in the stamp and they just stamp the eye.

I try to get the animated expression of the fish. Fishermen help me with that. They give me pictures of fish, and I had one fisherman give me a whole study of a fish’s eye just as it came out of the water. I study the eye, the expression and the way light reflects from it.

My use of color also distinguishes my work. I have a friend in Seattle whose colors are more mauves and browns, muted earth tones inspired by the Seattle lifestyle. I do a lot of California and Hawaii sport fish with the bright yellows, blues and silvers.

When they’re dead, a lot of fish lose their vibrant color. Just below the surface of the water, these fish are just beautiful. It’s those colors I’m trying to capture.

I rely on color charts, stories from fishermen, and a lot of fishermen take pictures of the fish for me.

Also, not too many people do sharks and the flying fish because they are hard to do. Sharks are very difficult to do because of the thawing process.

You have to thaw them to a certain temperature. I don’t measure the temperature, but through feel I know when the fish is ready to go.

Depending on the size of the fish, I may have to thaw it overnight. After that, I only have 15 minutes to work on the shark, and then it shrivels.

You can almost see it happening, and you can’t work with it anymore. I think I got seven prints from one of the sharks I printed, where with some fish, I can get hundreds of prints.

It’s a passion. I really enjoy the process.