Sorry to burst everyones bubble, but the elephants are just
trained to paint. An elephant doesn't understand that the picture is an abstract representation of itself. To the elephant it's just lines on a paper that it was taught to make. In fact, the trainer might even be secretly guiding it along the way.
Still, an elephants trunk is really impressive. I love elephants.
Hope you don't mind if I post a link. This is pretty cool. It's this crazy japanese show where they taught a chimp to make noodle. Actually, all the videos of this chimp are really entertaining.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=id_jIZTH4zA