Russian Nesting Dolls are so cool-looking, I had one when I was a little girl, living so close (Alaska and the Soviet Union- this was the 80's- are separated by a small bit of water) The imagery of Russian art remains among my favorites- the Russian Orthodox churches and structures that are in Alaska are beautiful (I've only seen Moscow in images and photos). My little matryoshka dolls had a label on the bottom which said "made in the USSR", and I still have it in pretty good condition, actually!
So I was thinking of doing a series of paintings, I've already sketched them out, and I was also thinking of making something else with the beautiful nesting dolls imagery. I also thought how cool would it be to make a little punk rock nesting doll? I didn't even know that nesting dolls had been done in anything but the traditional-old-school style with the yellow babushka, red dress with flowered apron and pretty rosy cheeks and painted lips.
After I did a little online research I found -to my horror- modern figurines, like Micheal Jackson painted on these little nesting dolls. Very trippy. And there were some with some incredible cheesy-tacky landscapes painted on them. But I did find some of the traditional nesting dolls, like the one I had as a kid (jeez it wasn't that long ago!) and so I thought I could put together a few different crafts with the matryoshka image along with my sketches, maybe even an applique on a purse or something. Apparently I'm not the only one with this idea....Check out this FABULOUS "matryoshka madness" from Laura Sweet's awesome blog, If It's Hip, It's Here