Nature Center Animals Paint Masterpieces For Generous Donators
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Art comes in all shapes and sizes, and so do artists at the Irvine Nature Center in Owings Mills.
"We have over 60 different animals," says Jenna Krebs. "Everything from frogs, turtles, snakes, opossum, hedgehog and then birds of prey."
But living at the nature center is not like living in the wild. It's both easier, because they get plenty of food and don't have to worry about predators, and harder, for the same reasons. Existing isn't as much of a challenge, so they can get bored.
"What we do with them almost every day is some form of enrichment," Krebs says.
For some, their stimulation is pretty colorful. Literally. First, paper and paint is arranged strategically on the floor.
"We'll take our different animals, we show them the food, they'll actually walk through the paint," according to Krebs.
"Some of them like it, some of them don't. Those that like it, though, they'll walk through it and then they walk on the canvas and they actually make a little painting.... As a little bit of incentive, anybody that donates over $100 towards Irvine gets one of these original artworks by our animals."
The end result looks something like this:
Irvine is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the paintings will be available the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
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