Elephants that paint! Every living thing is an artist!

I love elephants, or as Samwise Gamgee calls them Oliphaunts, and through digging I found that elephants can be taught how to paint, free hand! Naturally creative and intelligent animals, these gentle giants, if not forced can excel at the craft. I did not believe it at first but after much training and patience, from both the human and the elephant, many elephants can paint! They say that it is easy to see if an elephant will take interest to it our not quite quickly. It seems that the trainers tug on the elephants ear to guide them.  Still unbelievable!

As Issaraporn Kaewthanasawad, Managing Director -The Elephant Art Gallery, states:
"Although elephants are very intelligent and naturally creative, painting on an easel with a paintbrush in their trunks is not an activity that any have been found to perform in the wild! Therefore all the aspiring elephant artists first have to go to school to learn how to paint."

Don't you want to attend that school?!

"Elephant painting in Thailand began in 1998 when Richard Lair invited the conceptual art partnership of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid to teach selected elephants at the TECC to paint. Elephants had done this before in over 20 zoos and circuses around the world, but this was the first time in Thailand and they were the first to bring this activity to prominent media attention."

To learn more about these amazing elephants check out, http://www.elephantartgallery.com/

You can also see the elephants in action at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk&noredirect=1