Kite

An elephant with her kite.

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

Pretending us humans with our myriad distractions would be the first to ever notice extra terrestrials is the kind of anthropocentric folly we are all to easily fooled by.

If aliens did magically appear is almost certain the world of animals and plants will be the first to notice. They live in and of the natural world not on top of it. Ever observant, life for them depends upon knowing exactly what is happening around them at all times. If something was amiss in our atmosphere and outer space creeps were lurking in the shadows I'll put my faith into spiders and elk knowing before anyone else.

Elephants have generational knowledge carefully curated and shared since time immortal. I'm pretty sure if they find a little flying saucer poking around the Savannah they will probably already know with it is and what to do with it.

I imagine they will fly it as a kite, because what could be more fun for a trunk than a kite.

8 by 10 inches. Drypoint intaglio print. Watercolor added by hand. 2018.

Drypoint intaglio print of an elephant holding a string with its trunk, flying a small saucer-shaped kite with a yellow watercolor sphere, rendered in black ink on cream paper. — Kite by kyle parker cunningham

Alternate hand-pulled print of the elephant and saucer kite, with the same composition showing slight variations in ink density and plate tone between editions.

Hand-colored variant of the elephant and kite print, with soft green and teal watercolor washes along the ground beneath the elephant's feet and an uncolored saucer kite above.

Hand-colored variant of the elephant and kite print with rich purple and violet watercolor washes along the ground, the elephant rendered in black drypoint linework flying its saucer-shaped kite on a string.