Lmao, returning to this post series after 2 years. I just want to finish the post series just for the sake of it. It’s also Inktober, so I’ll try to wrap up a new art challenge (teaser: it’s another pixel art challenge, cookie run based). Before showing the results of that, I’ll finish this series first since there’s only like 4 posts left after this. (Link to my Instagram to see my flower art challenge (you don’t have to backread since I haven’t posted much lately ;-;)).
Let me just plug the pixel art app I’m using (because I forgot to do so before). They have the app available both on PC and on phone, and it’s made by an indie developer. So if you’re interested, please try the app and support the developer! They have a layer function as well as an animation function (for free!).
Steam: Pixel Studio – pixel art editor
Mac App Store: Pixel Studio for pixel art
Google Play: Pixel Studio: pixel art editor
App Store: Pixel Studio for pixel art
Anyways, back to the post. As the title says, this is a second post about local wildflowers here in the Philippines (I’ll ignore that I planned to do this on August lol). Without further ado, here are my arts and some trivias about the flowers.
Flower: Santan/Jungle geranium
Posted: May 11
Supposed Post Date: May 11
Why I Chose This: It’s a common flower in the Philippines. As a kid (or even until now), we use the flower to make a flower crown/bracelet. So yeah, it’s that kind of flower that’s sentimental to me.
Experience: Hmm… Okay, I’ll admit, this is one of the worst flower pixel art I’ve done in the art challenge. The worst one being the Lantana flower. At first I wanted to draw a single Santan flower like I did in the pencil art. But if I did that, it wouldn’t feel like Santan to me, and drawing a Santan bunch is surely a challenge… a challenge I didn’t pass.
Trivia:
> Santan is the national flower of Suriname [2].
> Santan is an evergreen plant (it has foliage throughout the year) [2].
> ALL parts of the santan has medicinal benefits (for skin diseases, diabetes, etc.) [2].
Flower: Calla Lily
Posted: May 17
Supposed Post Date: May 16
Why I Chose This: No particular reason. I just thought the flower looks nice and I’d like to try if I could mimic its 3d bell effect.
Experience: Honestly, I’m surprised by how good it turned out to be. I was worried it would look like a plain white thingamajig. This really helped me learn how important color tones in pixel art is. It could make or break a drawing you make. Meanwhile… my pencil art isn’t good at all (admittedly, I just did it for the sake of it and didn’t put enough effort)
Trivia:
> In contrast to santan… Calla lillies are toxic. Well, they’re not fatal, but still not a good experience to touch and eat [3].
> And again, in contrast to the the name itself… Cally lily isn’t a lily at all [4].
> Sadly for calla lilies, they are considered a weed in Africa, and an invasive species to warm areas of the USA [4].
Flower: Golden Shrimp Plant
Posted: May 27
Supposed Post Date: May 20
Why I Chose This: Ah, yes, the flower I used to call corn-flower. With a dash, because I know real cornflowers don’t look like corn. Let’s get real though, this looks like a cornflower more than a cornflower does. But yeah, it’s another flower I usually see when I go outside. I had zero idea what it’s called before I did the art challenge and had to google up what it’s called. All hail ProjectNoah.org for having the photo there (that’s the reference picture btw)
Experience: Yeah yeah, I know I know. It’s another fail. This time, both my pencil art and my pixel art looks like… err… yeah, not a golden shrimp plant at all.
Trivia:
> Similar to santan, golden shrimp plants are also evergreen [5].
> Apparently, to botanists, they look more like shrimps because of the overlapping of the petals (I swear though, it looks like a corn) [5].
> It’s also called a golden candle (which I accept more than the golden shrimp name) or even a lollypop plant (which idk, I can’t imagine) [5].
Flower: Blue Plumbago
Posted: May 7
Supposed Post Date: May 28
Why I Chose This: Like the golden shrimp plant, I honestly had zero idea what this flower is called. I initially thought it was a forget-me-not because of the blue color, but it didn’t have the yellow circle in the center so I knew it was a different flower. I chose to draw this flower to test how to draw 2 similar looking flowers (forget-me-not and blue plumbago; but I also have a lot of other experiments (see next post which will be up next Friday).
Experience: I think drawing this was successfully different from the forget-me-not. The colors are off (it’s too dark compared to the flower) which is a factor on why it looked different. As for the drawing itself, I really like how it turned out compared to the forget-me-not – tbf, the forget-me-not was my first drawing so I was really grasping on how to draw pixel art. About the pencil art though… it looks bad, but I tried my best.
Trivia:
> Blue plumbagos are also known as sky flowers [6]. A pretty fitting name for the flower, imo.
> It’s also an evergreen plant [6]. (This is the third time I mentioned evergreen, haha. Then again, I guess that’s why the flowers here are common wildflowers because they’re always in bloom)
> It’s also pest and disease resistant so they’re easy to take care of [6]. Again, this is probably why it’s a common wildflower.
Flower: Kalachuchi/Plumeria
Posted: May 15
Supposed Post Date: May 15
Why I Chose This: I loooove how Kalachuchi looks like and I love its English name (plumeria).
Experience: Lol, this is the only art in the post that’s done on the correct date. Well, as for the drawing experience, while the pencil art looks a lot more similar to the actual flower, I like the pixel art form better. I’m happy about the colors I chose, both for the flower (there’s like 7 colors there) and the background. The background really made the flower pop. And like the calla lily, this was more on a test on coloring rather than drawing itself. Drawing a five-petal flower is difficult though, considering that pixels are in multiples of 2.
Trivia: (no reference this time because the trivias are coming from me)
> Kalachuchi, in the Philippines at least, are used as offering for the dead or flowers at the funeral.
> Kalachuchi is very very fragrant. For Filipinos, the smell is typically associated with ghosts; again, because it’s used as offering for the dead. (Yeah, ghosts smell nice xD)
> Kalachuchi, unlike most flowers which are in shrubs or bushes, grow in trees. And that’s probably why “white lady” ghosts are commonly depicted as a lady under a tree.
References:
[1] ProjectNoah.org for the 2 reference flower photos 🙂
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixora_coccinea
[3] https://homeguides.sfgate.com/caring-calla-lily-plant-die-touch-leaves-98304.html
[4] https://extension.umn.edu/flowers/calla-and-canna-lilies
[5] https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/golden-shrimp-plant-pachystachys-lutea/
[6] https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/plumbago/growing-plumbago-plants.htm
Wings-p O_O 