KCIC's Jelly Bean sporting updated look after lift

Jelly Bean, a jolly 9-foot tall dragon who represents the Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration, recently received a face-lift with the help of the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center and a local artist.

Jenea Earhart, an artist at the dinosaur center, and her father, Gary, refurbished Jelly Bean by reinforcing him from the inside with cloth, replacing old cloth on the outside, painting him bubblegum pink and using acrylic paints for the spots, stripes, eyes and mouth.

"Jelly Bean was created for Imagination Celebration in 1995 and has not had anything done to him since his original papier-mch paint job," says Tracie Bennitt, the marketing and events coordinator at the dinosaur center. "He was looking pretty dinged up."

The Earharts worked on Jelly Bean for two weeks and bonded in the process.

"I worked on him for a while until everybody got tired of him back (at the center), so we took him home and worked on him in the garage," says Jenea. "We had a lot of fun with it. My dad always loves to work on projects with me and it was great working with him."

Jelly Bean's new look was revealed at the Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration fundraiser held June 30 at Ruby's Diner.

Jelly Bean can be seen at Celebration Place, on the upper level of the Mervyn's wing at The Citadel mall, when not making special appearances. Celebration Place hosts performances every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m. Tickets are $1.

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