Orchids in Procreate – Finding the Right Style

 

These orchid drawings have been living quietly on my iPad for longer than I’d like to admit. I started them last year after asking some of my orchid-gardening friends to send me photos of their favorite blooms. They came through with some incredible images—Cattleyas with frilly ruffled edges, graceful sprays of Cymbidiums, and delicate Phalaenopsis stems with that signature arch.

When I first began sketching them out in Procreate, I approached the project the same way I often do with botanical drawings: careful outlines, expecting to slowly layer in color, shading, and detail. My original plan was to build them up into more traditional, dimensional renderings—something lush and realistic.

But somewhere in the process, I realized the outlines themselves had a strength of their own. The bold line work gave the orchids a graphic presence, almost poster-like, that didn’t need layers of painterly shading to feel complete. I tried adding flat blocks of color instead, and suddenly the pieces clicked into place. The flat graphic style gave them a sense of immediacy and freshness that matched the unique character of each bloom.

The Cattleya with its yellow ruffled flowers became almost architectural, standing out with stark contrasts against a clean background. The Cymbidiums translated beautifully into a cascade of simple shapes, their repeating forms flowing in rhythm down the page. And the Phalaenopsis, with just two blossoms on an arched stem, felt both minimal and expressive at the same time.

What surprised me most was how much the “unfinished” quality of the outlines ended up being the finished work. Sometimes I go into a piece with a clear plan of where I want it to go, but the process insists otherwise. In this case, the orchids didn’t want to be painterly studies. They wanted to stay bold, flat, and graphic, with clean color fields and crisp edges.

Looking back, I think that’s one of the joys of working digitally—having the freedom to experiment without the pressure of wasting materials, and discovering along the way that the drawing itself already had everything it needed. These orchids taught me to trust the line and let simplicity speak.

I’ll probably continue experimenting with them, maybe even revisiting the idea of shading and depth in the future. But for now, I like them best in this form: simple, striking, and a little unexpected.

—Richard

E hele Kānāwai ‘ole – The Ungovernable Mynah

This piece started as a riff on the “become ungovernable” meme— from the Untitled Goose Game, where the goose is wielding a kitchen knife in pure chaotic defiance. I thought it would be fun to localize that idea. Instead of a goose, I drew a mynah bird—one of the loudest, most opinionated, and most common birds in Hawai’i.

The phrase I paired with it is “E hele Kānāwai ‘ole.” It’s a Hawaiian phrase that literally translates to “go without law” or “step without rules.” It carries a much more poetic and playful tone than the way Google Translate butchers it into “to become illegal.” That translation totally misses the spirit—this is more about defiance and playfulness.

I chose the mynah bird specifically because they’re such characters. You see them everywhere in Hawai‘i—strutting, squawking, always up to something. They’re smart, scrappy, and fearless. I once watched a pair of them go after a mongoose. One kept its attention while the other dive-bombed it—like some kind of avian tag-team. I wanted that attitude to come through in the drawing.

I created the image in Procreate, focusing on tight linework and dense crosshatching. I love that optical buzz that happens when you do detailed hatching digitally—it’s one of the few things in digital media that still gives me that tactile satisfaction. For now, it’s black and white, but I might color it if I decide to make stickers out of it. Depends on how I feel.

Downtown Art Center Honolulu Monday Figure Drawing 06/02/2025 Alicia – Structure, Process, and “The Matrix”

These two drawings are from this week’s figure drawing session at the Downtown Art Center. Both are 20-minute poses, done in ink and finished with watercolor. Alicia modeled for us—she brought great energy and poise, she is always such a good model. 

I was feeling particularly structural in my approach that night. I found myself going back through anatomy in my head, laying things out almost like blueprints. The final results felt pretty mannered and almost comic book–like—not in a bad way, but definitely stylized. That kind of draftsmanship muscle memory takes over sometimes, especially in short poses where you don’t have time to second guess.

In the second drawing, I think you can see my current process more clearly: I lay in counter lines to define the forms, and then slowly build mass with crosshatching. There’s a rhythm to it that I find really satisfying, even if it does tether me a bit too tightly to outlines.

After the second pose, Ellen passed by and looked over my shoulder. “Ooh—the Matrix,” she said. I laughed, because it kind of fits. The scaffolding, the visual structure, the way the drawing builds itself from a digital-looking skeleton outward—it’s all in there.

I’ll admit I felt a little frustrated with how dependent I am on outlines right now. But with 20-minute poses, there’s only so much freedom you can give yourself. It’s a tradeoff between instinct and observation. And maybe that’s the beauty of figure drawing—it forces you to sit in that tension and keep going.

If you want to join in, we meet every Monday at 6pm at the Downtown Art Center. It’s open to everyone. Come draw with us.