A 12-ton artist sauntered to his canvas.
He took the paintbrush from his trainer, curled his trunk around the brush and began to paint.
Luke, a 27-year-old Asian elephant, painted a picture splashed with orange and blue.
He is one of four elephants at Two Tails Ranch in Williston and was the star at Elephant Appreciation Day on Saturday.
“He just likes to do it. He gets all jittery,” said Patricia Zerbini, elephant expert and owner of Two Tails Ranch.
About 750 people attended the event, which the ranch plans to make annual.
It was a way to raise money for supplies — like for the 300 pounds of food each elephant consumes daily.
Pony rides kicked up dust near the parking area, the three-man band played renditions of Tom Petty songs and a line of 30 people waited to feed carrots to the elephant Roxy for $2.
And of course, crowds piled in to see Luke and his abstract art.
Luke paints almost every day.
He paints between baths, walks through the woods and feeding time, Zerbini said.
His paintings sell at the ranch’s gift shop for $15 to $100.
Kaitlin Sovich, 22-year-old anthropology and sociology senior at UF, decided to skip the University of Kentucky football game to come see the elephants instead.
“It’s cool to get out and see something exotic and different,” Sovich said. “I’d rather be here than sweating and screaming at the game.”
The ranch is home to other animals, as well.
Near the back, two zebras munched on hay, an ostrich patrolled its pen’s fence and a duck roamed near food vendors.
Ginny Somers, a 21-year-old biology senior, volunteers at the ranch regularly and ran the gift shop register for Elephant Appreciation Day.
Somers is a member of the Pre-Vet Club at UF, which has a history of coming out to Two Tails to tour and help out.
“My first day, we did everything we could possibly do at the ranch,” Somers said.
She said her duties included cleaning out the barns, carrying more than 100 bales of hay and scrubbing down the rough leather of the elephants.
“The skin is like rocks. It made my knuckles bleed,” said Somers, who hopes to one day work in an exotic animal clinic.
In her year helping out at the ranch, she has been amazed by Zerbini’s skill with the elephants.
“There’s nobody in this country who can train elephants like she does,” Somers said.
Zerbini said when she started to train Luke, it was obvious from the beginning that he loved to paint.
“I try to pull out from my elephants what they enjoy doing,” she said.
Luke, a 28-year-old Asian elephant, paints a picture for the audience at Two Tails Ranch located in Williston, Florida. The ranch is owned by Patricia Zerbini, 47, who has dedicated her life to training the elephants and studying exotic animals.
