Anyone who knows me knows that I love art. Specifically, I love art featuring capybaras, and especially specifically I love art featuring me. You may have seen the other posts in my Capybara Art category (press the link on the left sidebar). Those are really great pieces of art and I love them all. Actually, I can hardly even begin to give proper thanks to my original stalker Jim Perry, to Terry Stanley, Jeff Djayasaputra and, most recently, Grace Warrington. They are all professional artists with real affinities for animals and capybaras in particular.
What amazes me is how many wonderful ways there are to depict me in art. The four paintings above are all so unique in style and medium and in the feelings that they invoke in the viewer. I couldn’t possibly say which I like best. I honestly love them all!
With this in mind, it occured to me (and my owner) that one way to connect with school kids is through art and through their participation in the creation of art. That is why we have started handing out Caplin Coloring Pages when we go to schools. My owner did the drawings and, as she says, she can draw but she is no artist! But the kids can fill in the artist part with the outline on the coloring page just serving as a template. We are hoping that this type of activity will also help the kids understand and appreciate capybaras. Coloring my likeness should help them remember what I look like. That is the theory anyway.
Two of the schools I went to in October sent me images of some of the colorings done by their students. I think they are wonderfully creative. Most of them are based on this drawing of me.
The kids at the San Marcos Montessori saw this picture which helps to explain their color choices.
I think I look pretty cool all colorful like that. The kids did a great job!
We visited a 2nd grade class at Kiker Elemetary School. My owner gave them a greater choice of coloring pages partly because they were older and partly because she created more pages. She put more detail on the original page too. And I think you can see that these students did not see her colorful version. Amazing how that affects the coloring style!
Pretty great work by all the kids, I’d say!
If you’d like coloring pages, please send me an email using the contacts page and I will email you the jpg images.
If you are in Central Texas and would like me to visit your school for a capybara encounter, send us an email using the contacts page.
