Elephant Painting In Phuket

The elephant is Thailands national animal. Its role in Thailands culture was to transport logs and Royalties. Things change. A century ago, the advent of motorized vehicles retired the elephants as a means of transportation.

Recently, the new anti-logging laws brought about by the widespread deforestation in Thailand left more than 3,000 elephants and their mahouts out of work. Lucky are the elephants that were saved and are now thriving in elephant parks. Luckier are those who were taught new skills by their mahouts in order for master and beast to survive.

Who would have thought that Asian elephants have the instinctive inclination to paint? Mahouts soon discovered that elephants have the capacity to learn how to paint. It has been observed that elephants in captivity will naturally reach out for a stick and doodle on the floor of its enclosed space. Doodling on the sand is different from using a paint brush to paint on a piece of paper but, the possibility was there. The mahouts soon figured out how to teach their wards to paint and soon enough, elephants painting to earn their keep became a must see to believe.

The first batch of elephants that were taught to paint did so because they were unemployed. However, there is a large percentage of elephants that are now taught to paint at an early age. Baby elephants as young as 2 years old are trained by their mahouts basic commands then graduate to performing skills and then (if they have the talent) move on to learning how to paint.

Training an elephant how to paint is not an easy task. Mahouts teach their elephants the proper way to hold a brush with their trunks, customizing paintbrushes in the process. It could take more than a month for a young elephant to be taught this trick. They are then taught how to splash paint on a piece of paper. At the start, mahouts are the ones who select and mix the colors for the elephants and prompt the elephants when a painting is finished.

It was observed that as an elephant masters the fundamental techniques, it develops its own distinctive style. Not all elephant art is the same though. Elephants from the cool North use bold primary hues in their paintings. Their brushstrokes tend to be curvy and broken. Elephants from the Central region tend to use darker colors such as black, forest green and violet. Elephants from the South (Phuket) use tertiary colors like magenta, plum, and mustard, aquamarine and red-orange. These elephants mix the colors on the paper.

Are these elephant paintings real art? Conservatives and purist will disagree because for them, art is an expression of ones self. Though elephants are intelligent animals, can they really express themselves through painting?
The painting sessions could be therapeutic for the elephants and their mahouts.

Their art, colorful dots, dashes and squiggly lines, are expressive enough for an elephant. It is not every day that one sees an elephant that can paint.