Art Lessons: Russian Matryoshka Dolls

As part of our Around the World in 12 Dishes challenge, we read the book The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas Bliss.

It was a very sweet book about a set of Matryoshka dolls. The littlest doll got lost and at the end is reunited with her sisters.

After reading the book, we were inspired by the beautiful illustrations to design our own set of Matryoshka dolls.

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We used our oil pastels for this project in order to get some nice vibrant colors, but any art material would work. Try watercolors, tempura paints, markers, crayons, or even glued-on paper for a collage version.

I drew a quick outline of the dolls for each girl, then let them create and color without any further instruction.

They worked hard. Lizzie (age 5) carefully chose each color and design for the individual dolls. She continued long after AJ (age 3) was finished.

My favorite part are the faces! Big eyes, long eyelashes, and round cheeks.

We used some of the illustrations in the book for inspiration and the girls kept referring back.

You’ll notice that they added head scarves to mimic the dolls in the book.

Here are the finished products. AJ’s (age 3) is the first picture. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she added faces to her dolls. Lizzie’s (age 5) is the second. I love the colors and details in her dolls.