Coating gosho ningyo with gofun, Gosho ningyo

The softly shining white skin resembling porcelain is formed from layers of the pigment known as gofun, made from refined powdered itabo oyster shell. There are currently only two people who make this pigment in Kyoto. In recent years, it has been hard to find high quality itabo oysters and so Japanese scallop has come into use. There are three stages to the gofun application process, the base coat, the middle coat and the top coat. For the base coat, gofun is applied three or four times in a thick glue and, after Japanese paper is attached, more gofun is applied and the work is then dried.