Log0003
Observers
Last year I missed the annual orchid show at the botanic gardens, and by “missed” I really mean, I hadn’t cared to go. Likely that was a mistake, I’d heard good things. So, this year, in its final week, we made the effort and drove north.
As my wife and I got there and walked into the large greenhouse, I was instantly blown away. It might sound ridiculous, but these flowers were quite literally wilder than my imagination. Everywhere we looked was a different 6 petal combination more captivating than the last. Large, small, smaller, minuscule. Bold and petite. Plants with solitary heads or cascading vines filled with them. It was hard to imagine how such variety could exist within one plant family. It was harder still, to imagine that these grew in the wild somewhere. This 6-petal structure, where biology goes off creating such variation, seemed like an apt metaphor for the possibility of constrained creativity.
We were not the only ones in awe of the foliage. A hummingbird, two volunteers, and an interesting subset of observers were meandering through the floor. One man in particular caught my gaze as he snapped pictures of some of the purest looking flowers. Their delicate, perfect white appearance had an innocence that you can only understand from enough time looking into an orchid.
His hair was neatly styled, and his sandals in a way matched the satchel strung across his shoulder. My depiction fails to capture quite how baggy his shorts were. Partially, as a result my proportions are perhaps, too standard. But the polo reads, even if the cargo shorts don’t. This man seemed to be as captured as I was by the collection of plants. Everyone was.
Of the small audience within the glasshouse, I wonder why it was he who caught my attention. Even now, I cannot properly place it. Sometimes a scene just demands more than its fleeting moment of obscurity.
We left the garden right as they were closing the doors. The employees made sure the mother hummingbird had returned to her two chicks, there nesting high in the glasshouse ceiling flowers. Then, the doors were closed, and my awe began to slip away as I came back down to earth. As much as I wanted to illustrate the wondrous flowers, this is instead an observation of their observers.
I’ve begun to see the benefits of drawing not from my photo reference, and to instead draw from an intermediate sketch I have already done of the reference. Making sure not to have the initial image at hand appears to be driving creativity. I cannot fall back on the photograph to tell me what I was seeing and thus what to draw, I instead, must design it. This limiting factor narrows my focus on to the essential elements of the work and adds a more organic feel that I’m often lacking.