Where did the idea of training elephants to paint at Maetaman come from?
Originally, Khun Anchalee Kalmapijit, the Operations Director, learned elephant painting from the Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang. Khun Anchalee initiated elephant artists learning to paint for the first time ever in Chiang Mai in 2000. At the beginning, she and the mahouts trained the elephants to hold the brush by putting it into their trunk. For a while, the elephants refused to hold the brush, they were uncomfortable with the strange brushes placed in their trunks and let them fall to the ground. It took some time for them to accept it because elephants naturally pick up things by rolling their trunk and holding. After the elephants could hold the brush by their trunk, they were given brushes with color. Then, the elephants chose to draw lines up, down or put dots on the paper. Their practice compares to how a human first learns to write – practice, practice, practice. The elephants keep doing these until they have the skill to draw a proper line. This step takes many month
