Back in 2009, Bay Area artist Nico Berry started making lunch notes with poems and drawings to entertain his pre-schooler and classmates. Two favorites were about a lost octopus who slipped out of her leash and a lost hippo who liked eating buttercups.
Over a decade later, the hippo and octopus have finally found physical form and are now wandering the public parks of Palo Alto, CA. If you find them, look in their folders, which are filled with coloring/activity pages. (You can also print the pages directly from here.) Become part of the project by adding to our gallery of colored-in pages or sending photos of your finished pages and/or yourself with the animals. Send your pages/photos to nico@nicoberry.com or via direct message on Instagram. You can also find clues to their current locations and track their adventures on their Instagram page: @lostoctopotamus
Lost Octopotamus is a project created by Nico Berry, a muralist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. (You can check out some more of his work here and here.)
The Lost Octopotamus project is funded through the City of Palo Alto ArtLift Microgrants available to artists and creatives with the goal of helping the community find connection and joy through the arts and creative outlets. Learn more about ArtLift Microgrants at www.cityofpaloalto.org/publicart.
When you post about the project on your social media, please tag us: @publicartPA @nicosprayitloud #cpapublicart #artliftmicrogrant #lostoctopus #losthippo #lostoctopotamus