A Doll for Joya.

It has been quite a while that I worked on clay models. But my friend Alessandra asked me if I would be up to make a little doll for her daughter's birthday cake. Joya will be 4 years-old, she is so cute and handful of energy.
So I took the challenge, but I wanted to make sure I would do a decent work. And carefully I started the project.

Her first thought was to make a superhero girl, with her foot on top of a cartoon like bomb with her name on it. I saw some pictures of Joya and saw her little hair. My sketch came out like this.
To work on the body, I had to connect some skewers and wires to support the body.
I started working from bottom to top, first with the support for her leg and her name.
Then working on the body.
The hardest part was the head, that had to be done several times, because the faces were coming out so bad. But the last one started looking like a cute face, which made me feel better.
Making sure it was proportional to her body.
After placing the hair made it much better.
Then to see with her whole body was very exciting.
Alessandra also suggested a superhero mask. And I made this one with a elastic band so she could remove it.

Then mom Alessandra also asked me to add some details in gold.

I am so excited to see her birthday pictures and her cake! Happy birthday, little Joya!

手まり (Temari)

Temari are Japanese embroidered balls, introduced from China around the 7th century A.D. It means hand balls and they are used as toys, or decoration. In my case hair decoration, that goes perfectly with a colorful kimono.
After research, I decided to start to make the way it was done: first making a ball with cotton and thread.

After you roll the thread around until you don't see the cotton. That means A LOT OF TIMES.
Then you mark the areas to be embroidered.

And very patiently and carefully, you make some decorations.
I had to learn how to make tassels to finish the decorations. And this is how you use it.
Learning to make something new, in a way that our ancestors made, makes me very happy.