Paper beauties

These lovely ladies are two paper dolls made by me and the Hongster as Christmas presents for my mom and step-mom. As we did in June, we journeyed to the upstairs sweatshop/home of Chisako, the nice Japanese lady who has the patience to teach people like me to create veritable pieces of art such as this. They truly are beautiful.

These dolls are depictions of maiko, who are young apprentice geisha. Actually, when we think of a geisha, it is usually the young maiko whose image we have in mind. They wear extremely colorful kimonos and bright white makeup, as well as many fancy ornaments in their hair. Of these two dolls, the blue maiko is mine and the purple and orange maiko is Hong's. The texture of the paper and the delicacy of the details really are extraordinary. I could look at them all day:) In fact, I got an inordinate amount of pleasure out of looking at my doll. I just think these dolls are such astounding pieces of beauty, yet they are so simple. Like so many things in Japan.

The texture and details are really nice, so I suggest clicking on the pictures to see them full-screen.

Enjoy!