This is original art at it’s finest! On this weekly artist’s profile, we discovered an incredible artist who turned painting peanuts into a career!
Meet Steve Casino!
Steve Casino is a US-based artist and toy inventor who spent years working in many creative mediums when eventually he found his favorite snack (the humble peanut) to be his golden trademark that people are now going nuts for! (excuse the pun).
Casino uses the peanut as his main star, but he also uses super Sculpey, magic-sculpt clay, and acrylic paint. Casino has made many celebrities into these iconic mini-masterpieces including Elton John, Bob Marley, Marilyn Monroe and the Game Of Thrones cast!
If you’re a movie or Marvel fan you will want to check out the work he does with cult classic characters from movies like The Shining, Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice!
I loved getting to know more about this interesting and talented artist, and couldn’t wait for you to as well!
Interview With Steve Casino:
Q1.) When you were a child, did you ever imagine you would be painting nuts for a living? (lol)
No, but ironically I was obsessed with the comic strip “Peanuts” by Charles Schulz. Drew the characters all the time since my earliest memories. I even told my first-grade classmates I wanted to draw Peanuts when I grew up. How prophetic those words turned out to be.
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Q2.) From my research people literally, go nuts over your work! How did this nut painting concept come about?
Someone at our office brought in a huge bag of peanuts (with shells on). Hadn’t had one in years but as I ate them I noticed for the first time that they looked like the head and torsos of little people. So I drew myself on one with a marker.
It looked really funny so I pranked my friend with it. “Dude, this peanut looks like me!” He turned around expecting to see a squat, stocky peanut. But it also had my face on it.
He laughed so I drew wicked peanut caricatures of my other co-workers. It occurred to me that I could make them of anyone so I started making celebrities. The first ones were really crude but my skills grew the more I made.
Q3.) Do you think this original concept was a part of your success as an artist?
Totally! Everything I’d done up to this point had ultimately failed. This includes (but is not limited to): Illustrator, caricature artist, cartoonist, painter, sculptor, designer, writer. I was at a very low point career-wise when things just suddenly took off.
But all those failures were a learning process that made me really good at this particular thing. And I realized that the presentation and inventiveness made all the difference. It tickled people’s funny bones to see celebrities made from such an unlikely object as a peanut shell.
Before that, I was just one of another million wannabe cartoonists but now I was the “World’s Greatest Peanut Painter.” It also helped that I was the ONLY one in existence. Made me stand out from the crowd.
Q4.) You have a reoccurring theme in some of your work around popular cult movie characters like the Shining and the Exorcist. Are these your favorites to paint?
Yes. It amuses me to take “evil” things and make them tiny and seemingly benign. I love the Shining so much I could make art based on it all day. Luckily one of my clients is the world’s foremost Shining collector so there’s always a place to sell it.
Q5.) I know your demand is high for your commission work. What is the craziest commission piece you have done so far?
Funny that you ask me that. I just finished one last night of a couple where he had a T-Rex body and she was in a jungle explorer outfit. 2nd place is peanut sushi.
Q6.) What has been your most memorable or biggest commission you are proud to be a part of?
Last year I was commissioned to make the Royal Family for Meghan and Harry’s wedding by a company in Britain. The process video of me making them was on TV all over the world. The Royals have it on their YouTube channel. And I recently finished 20 pieces that will comprise the cover of a quiz book called “Vintage Geek” coming out this fall.
Q7.) Your painting is very detailed and lifelike, and yet it’s on a tiny canvas that’s a freakin peanut! It’s so good! What are the challenges you face when dealing with such a unique canvas?
If I’m painting a facial feature and am off by the slightest bit, it can screw up the entire likeness. I’ve had to scrape off entire faces and start again countless times. It used to be much more difficult but gets easier with each one.
A little over a year ago I wanted to see how small I could actually paint so I switched to Tic Tacs (mints) as a canvas. The craziest-detailed one had Van Gogh’s self-portrait on one side and his painting “Starry Night” on the other. After doing those for a bit I switched back to peanuts and they seemed HUGE.
Q8.) On average, how long would one of these little masterpieces take to complete?
5-10 hours depending on getting the likeness right.
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Q9.) What is one piece of advice you would give to an artist that is trying to get their art out there?
Take the time to first learn the drawing basics like perspective, shading, how to construct people, objects, etc… These are the building blocks of all art. And try to do your own thing. For every original artist on Instagram, there are 1000 others making bad copies of Disney characters or sculpting cupcake charms with faces. You can learn by copying but it will only get you so far. People look at Andy Warhol’s prints and think it’s trash but that guy could draw amazingly well. They don’t see the years of toiling that led him to silk-screening soup cans.
Q10.) Where can our readers get their hands on one of these little nut jobs!?
I’m on Instagram as @stevecasino and Facebook as @painterofnuts. Website is stevecasino.com. My email is itpopart@gmail.com I am too busy to maintain an online store but you can email me to discuss a commission. The wait for them is pretty long right now because I have a solo show in LA in Oct. that I’ll be directing most of my efforts towards.
We hope you enjoyed Steve Casino’s Art! Feel free to share the nuttiness on social media with your friends!
Emmy is the founder and content writer at woopdedo. With a background in the performing arts, she then had a career working on cruise ships, until she decided to return to NZ where she spends most of her time storytelling and freelance writing. You can contact her on the social media links below or visit the work with us page.
Emmy is the founder and content writer at woopdedo. With a background in the performing arts, she then had a career working on cruise ships, until she decided to return to NZ where she spends most of her time storytelling and freelance writing. You can contact her on the social media links below or visit the work with us page.
