Animal Art

Special Edition: Mother's Day Elephant Paintings

Celebrate the mothers in your life with a one-of-a-kind art piece. Our elephants, with the assistance of their Zoo keepers, created beautiful art pieces with contributions from both mother and child. Elephants are wonderfully attentive mothers to their offspring and can often be seen surrounded by their young calves, who can sometimes get under foot and playfully cause mischief.

Using their talented trunks the elephants gently press them to the canvas to create individual “kiss” prints, and sometimes even use puffs to create spray patterns on the canvas. Painting provides one-on-one interaction time with their animal care team and strengthens the relationship between the elephants and their Zoo keepers.

Li Ming: Red Panda

Li Ming has lived at the Houston Zoo since 2015. She creates her works of art by walking across the canvas. Thick fur covers red panda’s entire bodies, even the soles of their feet, which means you’ll see imprints of all that fur in Li Ming’s paw print masterpieces. Li Ming’s favorite activity, besides interacting with her Zoo Keepers, is sleeping. Red pandas can sleep 16-18 hours a day! They need to rest from being so cute.

Shasta: Cougar

Celebrate your University of Houston Grad with a painting made my Shasta himself! Like his counterparts in the wild, Shasta loves to climb and can often be seen high up on the rocks basking in the sunshine. Shasta’s unique relationship and trust in his animal care team makes for dynamic paintings, full of movement, paw prints and swirls.

Belle and Willow: American Black Bear

Belle and Willow came to the Houston Zoo in 2013 from California where they were being fed by patrons of a restaurant and appeared to be orphaned. US Fish and Wildlife rescued them and asked the Houston Zoo if we could offer them a home. Belle, the larger of the two, can often be seen playing in the pool and rough-housing with Willow. Willow is the mastermind behind the brawn of Belle. She is smaller and enjoys engaging with her enrichment. Their artwork is dramatic and eye-catching, with full paw prints that can be seen across the canvas.

Denver: Blue and Gold Macaw

Denver has lived at the Houston Zoo since 2010 and during this time has developed his own artistic flare. Holding a paintbrush in his beak, he moves the brush in long, sweeping strokes to create his masterpieces.

Mike: Gorilla

Born on December 24, 1991, Mike often prefers to paint with a modified paint brush that has an elongated handle. He will grasp the brush and quickly move it from side to side or up and down, he has even been known to twist his modified paintbrush and make circular wisps on the canvas.