I had the pleasure of being invited to a botanical drawing class by Cynthia Padilla at Mercer Arboretum here in Houston. I had a wonderful time and would encourage anyone who likes to draw or has a bit of artistic talent to try this. It’s one more way to enjoy your orchids and it is amazing how much more you see in your flowers when you draw them. I love my orchid flowers and every time I go in my greenhouse I stop to admire them and talk to the plant, but when you draw the flower you really have to pay attention to shape, color, how the petals overlap, etc.

Botanical art’s purpose is to capture the subject realistically. Cynthia recommends that you draw your subject to actual size rather than trying to change the size. First, we took the item we were drawing and placed it on sketch paper and sketched around it to get the size and outline. She defined sketching as small light strokes with a pencil rather than long continuous lines. Then we connected the lines, again in pencil, and added depth and tone if the drawing was to be in pencil. Depth is defined as shadows and major definitions.

One little tip that she gave us was to take a cup or other round object and circle a part of the drawing that had all the elements of the subject and only do a finished drawing within that circle. This accomplished several objectives – you are only spending time on a small portion of the whole drawing so finishing takes much less time while still capturing the essence of the subject; and it allows you to draw several subjects in the same time that you would have spent finishing off a complete picture.

My favorite medium was the pen and ink rendering. We used drawing pen first and then pen over the pencil line drawing. The ink is allowed to completely dry. Then all pencil is erased and you can then apply either watercolor pencil for painting later; wax pencils; or pen detailing. We worked on all the different media and even mixed some of them together for effect.

I could not believe what I had missed on my orchid when I drew it – the color of the sepals and petals, the beautiful fuchsia spotting and the white throat that provides contrast and makes the color so much more beautiful. And the one most important lesson I took away from the experience is: go ahead and try drawing if you enjoy it. It is amazing how much you can draw in twenty minutes and how much you will learn from your subject in that time.

Cynthia is a nationally recognized lecturer and botanical art instructor. She has a popular website dedicated to Sketching and Drawing.