Bearly Artistic

It’s a bear painting! A painting made by bears!

What happened is this:

My daughter was taking me around the zoo where she works and told me we were going to make a bear painting. A bear painting. Okay. I chose the colors and squirted dollops of paint around the canvas. I slipped it into a plastic bag that my daughter had smeared with peanut butter on one side. Then my daughter (a trained professional, do not try this at home) (or in the wild) (or at a zoo) (wait, why would you have bears in your home?) held the plastic bag up to her zoo’s two bears and they slurped up the peanut butter (I feel you, bears), smearing the paint around. She took it out of the bag, a co-worker put a finish over it, and voila! A bear painting just for me! Let’s call it…neo-Fauvism.

I think it’s important to note that the bears were behind a fence the entire time. The bears are adorable, but as much as I want to hang out with them in their enclosure, I know that I should not do that thing.

And when I said only hold the bag for the bears to lick if you’re a trained professional? Well, you can also hold the bag yourself, if a trained professional (like my daughter) says you can. Standing there with a bear licking peanut butter with its massive tongue off of something I was holding was so incredibly cool! Having a daughter who is a zookeeper is a ton of fun.