During one of Beijing’s busiest holidays — the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival week — I held my first kids’ art session at the Beijing Reptile & Insects Kingdom, alongside a small showcase of my wildlife paintings. . The venue was alive with both excitement and creatures — snakes, frogs, and lizards all quietly listening in (or so it seemed).
We explored how animals inspire art — how painting can make us imagine what it feels like to be them. I introduced the children to my muses from Southeast Asia’s flora and fauna: the gentle Malayan tapir, the playful sun bear, the thoughtful proboscis monkey, and the wise orangutan.
The kids were wonderfully engaged — giggling at the proboscis monkey’s long nose, gasping at the sun bear’s chest marking, and nodding earnestly when I said that “artists can imagine how animals feel — that’s our superpower.”
We also talked about wildlife in cities — hedgehogs, woodpeckers, even owls in Beijing’s parks — and how small acts of care can make them feel safe among us.
When we talked about “Can art help us think like animals?” the children’s answers made everyone smile. One said the tapir might cover its ears during fireworks because it misses the quiet of the forest. Another thought the orangutan might want to wear clothes because people stare and laugh too much.
Their ideas were funny, but also very kind. Through their drawings, I could see how easily children understand what it means to care.
That’s what happens when animals step into human stories — we start to imagine how they feel. And maybe that’s what art is really about: learning to look at the world with gentle eyes. If these children can already think this way — curious and full of heart — maybe our wild neighbors will always have a friend in us.
I left the session with laughter echoing in my ears and a simple thought in my heart:
Maybe, when we learn to see animals differently, we also learn to see ourselves anew.
