Weekly Photo Challenge: Yellow

This week’s Weekly Photo Challenge is on the theme of ‘yellow’, and yesterday I just happened to pick up a brand new sunshiny addition to my kokeshi (こけし) doll family:

My new yellow kokeshi doll

‘Yellow’ is making me think about this beautiful piece of craft right now. She’s my first yellow traditional kokeshi doll – most of my other traditional dolls are wood coloured with red and green patterns. I’m still finding it quite hard to identify kokeshi by their shape and design and work out which region of Japan they come from, but my guess would be that this one is either Togatta style (遠刈田系) or Yamagata style (山形系). That being said, Togatta style kokeshi typically have larger heads, so perhaps it is a Yamagata style one.

If anyone out there knows more about identifying kokeshi dolls, please do leave a comment below! My collection is growing, and I’m keen to identify them correctly now and know what I’ve got. I think I still have quite a few types to collect!