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Rhoody

Available again today, no problem. So how does an elephant learn to paint I wonder. Or are we just underestimating all other animals up until now? Pretty incredible.

We lived in Thailand for 3 years and have seen them paint many times. We bought a painting the first time we visited (for about $25), then, the last time we visited the cheapest was $100.

Elephant Art: investments for the future!

Absolutely blew me away. I had heard about the intelligence of elephants and how they even weep real tears when they’re mourning a death, but this goes above and beyond rudimentary intelligence. This elephant used color appropriately, and had her own sense of style and whimsy. I love how she would go over an exact line again if she didn’t think it was dark enough. Unbelievable.

At first i thought this was fake and then i thought that the elephants were simply trained to follow the lines made in pencil already on paper until i saw the whole process myself last year. It seemed like the elephant actually enjoyed drawing them too. These paintings cost a fortune however! They were trying to flog them for £300 in the safari park we went to.

Isn’t that just totally awesome??? My mom sent it to me last week, as well, and I almost didn’t open it, myself. I’d seen elephants ‘paint’ many times on documentaries. You know, kind of like when you first let a child draw - those type of drawings. Something made me click it, though, and I was so thrilled!

A painting such as the one in the video would be the absolutely perfect gift for me - I absolutely adore elephants. They don’t have any available on the site right now, though. I’m definitely going to keep checking, though.

Elephants are truly, truly amazing creatures. There was a story about two elephants that were separated in their youth to go to separate countries (maybe even separate continents, I think) to work in (ACK!!!!) circuses and the like. Twenty years down the road, they were both being retired and sent to live in a rescue facility - the same rescue facility! According to normal elephant behavior - it was perfectly obvious that the two animals recognized, remembered, and were very happy to see each other.

Elephants just ROCK!

(I get logged out on single post pages.)

Is that for real, seriously? Why did they not pan back more!

One could probably train any animal to do this. Any animal, that is, which has the ability to hold a stick.
You would just have to train them to follow the outline of a simple image then gradually remove the outline.
Or maybe it’s just that 4kg brain.

Isaac, You may well be right. The thing that gives it away is the flower the elephant on the picture is holding. Not something that elephants do. Does not seem like a logical thing to draw for an elephant. he he

Its really hard to believe but it is true.Elephants are quite smart.Certainly smarter then we think.

If they were that smart, they would trample the people making them do things like painting!

This was shown on a program on TV.

The portrait is not actually drawn by the elephant. The real artist is the person who is standing next to the elephant. This person holds the elephant’s tusk and moves it to cause the trunk to move and therefore paint on the canvas.

The elephants are able to grip a paintbrush independently and do in fact ‘paint’ but their paintings are similar to that of a one year old.

It’s a shame this video is not true.