Mini Make - Woodland Peg People

I'm working on a project at the moment in a local school for the company Artspace, inspired by Kurt Schwitters and including a visit to his 'Merz Barn' studio in Elterwater in the Lake District. The teachers and I came up with the idea that the project will ask the children to imagine that tiny people are living in the woods, watching Schwitters at work in his studio and being inspired to decorate their tiny tree trunk homes with collage. We'll also be making giant flowers, leaves, and seed pods, and masks of animals who live in the woods to create an installation that explores experiences of scale. Needless to say, I love this project and I'm having loads of fun thinking about the things we could make on it.

This week we are going to start making the homes of these little people with shoe boxes, using a colour palette and materials inspired by the woods. But of course we also need to make the miniature people who will be living there, and this is what I have been working on today.

I'm working with Year 2 classes (6-7 year olds) and there are 36 of them so whatever we made needed to be cheap and relatively easy to do. Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in children getting to try their hands at all sorts of art, not just the easy options, but this is a big project and we have lots of things to make so I didn't want the little woodland people to take up too much time. Using wooden dolly pegs seemed to be a simple but fun way forward, and I was excited to find packs of wooden pegs which come with their own stands so they don't topple over!

We try to incorporate little bits of Waldorf inspired activity into the things we do with our one year old, and recently took her to a Steiner related playgroup full of lovely wooden toys decorated in woodland colours, so these have also influenced these little people. There are so many beautiful blogs out there of people who make peg dolls, but I thought you might enjoy seeing my process so you can make your own.

I started with a dolly peg and stand, but the pegs was far too tall when compared to the shoe boxes so I decided to cut them down.

Using a small modelling saw and mitre I cut the ends off, but kept them because they looked like they could be good for making mini furniture later on.

It was really simple and looked so much cuter, but I have to cut 50(!) so I might be regretting this later in the week. Anyway I made a few that were slightly different sizes so they could look more like a family.

I wanted the bodies to be painted in tones that reflected the colours of the forest, so I began with a simple base coat of watercolour. 

I then painted stripes of greens and browns, but brushed over them with a wet brush so the colours merged into each other.

Now on to their tiny little faces! This was surprisingly difficult, so after a few disasters despite using the smallest micro brush I could find, I decided to take the easy option and drew the eyes and mouth on with coloured pencil. 

Then I used a tiny bit of watercolour paint to give them rosy cheeks. 

They looked so sweet, but needed something to keep their heads warm! I thought about using felt, or knitting extremely small hats, but this seemed like it would take a huge amount of time, so in the end I glued a wool on to look like wooly hats. I began by covering their heads in PVA glue, and then carefully wound the wool round their heads (I think we might use tape for the workshops in school though!)

And they were finished! 

Of course I spent a while playing with them but it wasn't a very nice day so I couldn't run out and put them in a woodland scene like I wanted to. Perhaps another day. But for now, I hope you enjoy making tiny woodland peg people!