His linework is good, but he needs to work on his shading...

Whether the elephant made this up or not it's still amazing.

It reminds me of 'Clever Hans' - the horse that could supposedly count. It turned out that he was noticing subtle cues from his handler that told him when to stop pawing the ground. His handler wasn't even aware of the cues, so to my mind Hans really was clever, even if it wasn't in the way people first thought.

When we realise how hard it is to know what an elephant or an orangoutang or a dolphin is really thinking, it makes me wonder if we would ever be able to communicate with an extra-terrestrial intelligence, supposing that one exists.

I like how he is able to trace the line of the front almost exactly the second time. It looks like he wasn't happy with the lack of paint in the line... The flower is awesome too.

There's more videos on YT featuring the same elefant doing the same picture, so I think it might be a trained behavior...

Still, awesome technique for someone who holds his brush with his nose... ;-)

Not sure if it is the current issue of National Geographic or the one prior (has a border collie on the cover). There is an article in there about animal intelligence and behaviour. Elephants are self aware. Fairly sure not to the point where they can paint a self portrait but they do recognize themselves in a mirror.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there was some "creativity" here. Elephants are self-aware (they can recognize themselves in a mirror) and have fairly good cognitive abilities (remember, they never forget).

I don't know about this elephant specifically. They have a whole gallery of elephant art from a zoo in India: http://www.elephantartgallery.com/

It does look like some get guidance (think Clever Hans) while others do their own thing (and tend to be a little more abstract). Check out a short article here (which includes musician elephants!): http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53264/

Its my understanding that elphants are self aware in that they can distinguish themselves in a mirror, btut hat they are not capable of this sort of painting. Real elephant paintings I've seen are of stuff, but they are nowhere near as clean or complex as this. For instance, I've seen by my one year old and an elephant draw a fire truck. Remarkably similair, but they were both just red boxes.

Am I the only one thinking "guest comic"?

That elephant can do better art then about 9000 webcomic artists.

I think somebody needs to edit this and throw in the velvety-soft voice of Bob Ross. Who's game?

She was trained to make that picture, as a matter of fact: http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/default.php?cPa th=69 [elephantart.com] -- "...the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes..."

After seeing that video on Cute Overload last night, I spent a long time trying to find out that exact thing, and finally came across that link. :-)

It's still pretty amazing.

Oh my god, that would, like, kill me completely! :D

Gee, very talented. I only do abstract work.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2iAOMN3tf_c

Merlin the Painting Dog

There used to be a painting elephant named Ruby ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(elephant) ) in the zoo near where I live. She wasn't trained, and her paintings were more abstract. Although I remember this one display where it looked like she had copied the pattern on a girl's shirt.

Might I point out that we too are trained at a young age to express ourselves in a 2d nature and that this is an abstract form of tool-making? Kid's don't draw stick-figures on their own, they see them, and then they draw them. the whole traditional flower shape is the same. So the elephant that copied the lady's shirt, I'd say that was closer to true expression. It observed, and felt the need to reproduce something, which is to me, the definition of art.