The peanut guy inspiration

I have great fun making “peanut guy” sculptures!

(and now offer it as a workshop here)

Inspired by a ceramic exercise

The inspiration for the peanut felt guys came in a class I took to learn how to guide others in their creative journey. One of the suggested exercises brought me to create this angel - embryo like ceramic figure :

The sculpture is born out of two ceramic balls.

Approach in felt

Back home I was inspired to try this approach in felt. The picture below shows the template - two connected circles - already prepared with several layers of wool and in this case an extra layer of paper:

Finally the initial idea of the two connected balls (circles) stayed the only connection between the ceramic and felt sculptures. Once the wool shrank to the stade where is becomes sculptural, the emerging material talked to my hands and my mind accepted to listen.

This is how the initial idea was transformed during the process. The expression of the face became finally the main issue.

From black to white

The first peanut felt sculpture was done in black.

A bit disappointed because the black color didn’t allow the shaped lines standing out clear enough, I decided to make another one in white.

The white peanut felt guy. allowed to see the shaped lines much better.

I was amazed how different this second one came out and while making these guys I saw so many more possibilities! I got hooked and went on making more: