Steve Casino creates them:
To begin, Casino studies images of the person he will paint. The next step is finding the peanut — the artist may sift through hundreds of nuts before he finds the perfect one. Once the perfectly-shaped peanut is found, the nut inside is extracted, and the shell is glued back together. A shell of wood filler is that spread onto the front, making for a smooth painting surface. Legs and a stand are added, followed by the arms once the painting is completed.
How he got started:
Steve Casino became the “Painter of Nuts” on a snack-time whim. He sketched a quick self-portrait on a shelled peanut that he thought matched his shape, and his legume likeness cracked up his coworkers. Casino, a former New Yorker, then hurried to enshrine hometown heroes The Ramones, adding paint and limbs to peanut bodies. After a minor social-media explosion, Casino set about cashing in on the attention.
See more images from the series on the artist’s Facebook page.
(Photo by Steve Casino)
The Dish 