So, in this post, I’ll be talking about the national flowers of countries I’ve been to. I was inspired to draw them while cleaning up my files and seeing my Europe tour files. I thought, why not draw their national flowers? So, yeah, here we go.
Link to my Instagram to see my flower art challenge
Let me just plug (again) the pixel art app I’m using. 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!). (No I’m not paid to advertise the app, I just love the app)
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
By this time, I stopped drawing pencil art for the flowers (I don’t remember why though, probably got lazy lol). So here’s just the drawings.
Flower: Ratchaphruek
Posted: May 30
Supposed Post Date: May 9 (lol)
Why I Chose This: Thailand’s national flower! Thailand is the first country I traveled to (back when I was 10!)
Experience: From the picture of a ratchaphruek I saw, it actually looks like an Ilang-ilang (which I drew before), so I can’t draw the flower as a single flower. There’s also the fact that the flower’s iconic look is when they’re in a bunch on a tree. I ended up drawing the flower as a bunch, and I think it looks pretty cute. Though at first sight, I don’t think I’d imagine it as a flower 😅
As for my experience in the country, I don’t really remember much. The highlight that stuck to me though is the river market where we’re riding a boat and there’s market stalls on the sides. Unique market experience done right.
Trivia:
> The name ratchaphruek means “royal tree” in Thai [1].
> The best time to see these flowers blooming in its glory is now (between March to May) as the weather turns hotter (so right now!) [1].
> The Ratchaphruek originates from India although they are easily found in most tropical and sub-tropical region eastward of India such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Myanmar and also comes in many varieties. For one, Indonesia’s variety is purple in color [1].
Flower: Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim or Singapore Orchid
Posted: May 30
Supposed Post Date: May 28
Why I Chose This: Singapore’s national flower (durr, it’s in the name, lol). Singapore is the second country I’ve traveled to.
Experience: This is the second time I drew a pixel art that takes advantage of the blur effect of a pixel art (first one is also an orchid, lol). I honestly love how it turned out. I’m kind of trying the same technique in my other pixel arts, but it doesn’t turn out as good as this one. I hope one day I capture the technique well.
As for my experience in the country, the first thing I remember was that Universal Studios was closed when we went there 😭But the place was nice, it was clean all around. The public transportation system is also quick and convenient – and good thing there was a kind native that taught us how to use the system.
Trivia:
> The flower is actually a hybrid between Papilionanthe teres (♀) and Papilionanthe hookeriana (♂)[2].
> The orchid is named after Miss Agnes Joaquim who created Singapore’s first orchid hybrid [2].
> The orchid was chosen as Singapore’s National Flower among 40 flowers in 1981 [2].
Flower: Edelweiss
Posted: May 29
Supposed Post Date: May 30
Why I Chose This: Switzerland is the third country I’ve visited and the longest trip I’ve ever been to. Edelweiss is also Austria’s national flower, another country that I visited during our Europe Tour.
My experience in Switzerland was a great one. I’m probably biased because Switzerland is our longest trip (so far), but I looooove Switzerland. I love the free museums, the superb transportation system, and pretty much everything else. Switzerland is definitely in my list of countries to go back to.
As for Austria, the highlight of our visit there is our trip to Mozart’s House. It’s a pretty interesting experience. The only thing missing is that we didn’t get to actually listen to a performance (like, what’s the point of going to a musician’s house/museum if you don’t listen to music? So sad). We still have the violin-shaped bottle of alcohol we bought there (after 4 years, lmao).
Experience: I was just going with the flow when drawing this and it turned out beautiful. It looks either like a flower or a snowflake. Either way, I love it.
Trivia:
> The edelweiss is a perennial, which means it will flower year after year but must reseed itself [3].
> The edelweiss is fertilized by flies (kinda gross imo) [3].
> The movie, The Sound of Music, almost caused the flower to become extinct because so many tourists were picking them. But It can no longer be regarded as an endangered species (wow, darn, that’s just like Finding Nemo effect) [3].
Flower: Cornflower
Posted: May 30
Supposed Post Date: May 30
Why I Chose This: Germany is the country we visited right after Switzerland (and our detour to France/Chamonix).
My experience in Germany? BEER! I honestly hate beer because it smells and tastes bad. But in Germany, it was my first time drinking beer that actually tastes good. Dayum. (Too bad I can’t have alcohol anymore :’) )
Experience: This is the first flower art I drew that’s legitimately in a side view (not front view). I liked the comment on my post where it’s a really minimalistic approach :))
Trivia:
> It is a self-pollinating plant, although its pollen and nectar attract many insect [4].
> Cornflower nectar is very sweet – so it is highly valued by beekeepers [4].
> Cornflower petals are edible (yum) [4].
Flower: Tulip
Posted: May 31
Supposed Post Date: May 31
Why I Chose This: Netherlands and Hungary’s national flower!
We didn’t stay in Hungary (same as in France), but rather just went there for a short trip to eat food (I forgot what that food is called) because we liked the food when we tried it in a German food fest (I love Germany). Sadly, there was a heat wave at the time so it wasn’t fun at all. The restaurant we ate at wasn’t that good too, so yeah. Not a good experience. Too bad.
As for Netherlands, it’s the last country we visited during our Europe tour (and consequently, the last country (so far) that I’ve visited). Sadly, we didn’t get to go to see tulips because they’re not in season at the time. The highlight of my experience there is probably when we were in a boat with a tour guide showing us the highlights of the place.
Experience: The main image of a tulip for me is a bunch of tulips together like what I did in the drawing. And so, I drew it like that. I wasn’t really confident that I could execute it because a 16×16 board can only fit so much pixels, so I didn’t know if the image in my mind could translate well on the art. Gladly, it did. This is probably one of my few drawings I’d love to use in a game I make (in the future, maybe a faraway future, but one day… hopefully).
Trivia:
> Tulips are native to Central Asia (surprise? I just learned this today, too… so why is it in Europe?) [5].
> The tulip industry got its start in Holland. In the 1500s, Carolus Clusius, a botanist, received some tulip bulbs and grew the plants in his private collection. They weren’t for sale but his garden got raided (man, that’s rude. But now we know why it’s in Europe, heh) [5].
> Each color tulip carries its own significance (this one, I knew before because of a fanfic I made, hehehe) [5].
There’s also the Iris (France’s national flower) which I didn’t add here since I’ve already posted about it in the first post of the series. Our trip to France is amazing because we went to Chamonix, it’s my first (and last, maybe since I’m sick :’) ) time going to the alps.
Plus, there’s the Rose (Czech’s national flower) which I also didn’t add because it’s going to be featured in another post, hehe. I’m so sorry I don’t remember anything we did in Czech 😅 (All I remember was that my laptop died while we were in Czech 🥲all my other Europe photos pre-Czech died along with it 🥲I wanna cry 🥲)
There’s also Belgium, another country we visited in our Europe tour. Their national flower is a red poppy which I’ll also feature in another post (though I’m not actually sure if it’s the same type of poppy… nevertheless, still a poppy). I love Belgium’s chocolates and waffles (yum). We got lucky the chocolate shop/museum tour we went to was a great one (Choco-Story), I highly recommend going there for a tour. It’s worth the price.
[1] https://www.roadtrippers.asia/experiences/ratchaphruek/
[2] https://www.nparks.gov.sg/florafaunaweb/flora/2/5/2539
[3] https://raredirndl.com/blogs/inspiration-trends-recipes/true-facts-about-edelweiss
[4] https://factinformer.com/facts/102/about-cornflower/
[5] https://www.1800flowers.com/blog/flower-facts/tulip-facts/
And that’s it for today. I know I’m cheating by making posts to catch up to old posts I didn’t post, but I really just want to complete the series. Though I’ve found a game without any written walkthrough yet (again, by PapaBox), so yay for content. I also found another game (or set of games) I want to make a guide of – but they already have their own guides😅I’ll just make one just for the sake of it. I’ll try my best to look for new games without a guide yet.
I’ll try to go back to this post and tag other posts (for the rose and the poppy and maybe the walkthrough) once I’m done with them.
Also, maybe I’ll just try to post every first and last Friday instead of every Friday. I still need to graduate 😅
PS: I just realized the posting date of this post is my birthday, lol. Happy birthday to me 🥳
Wings-p O_O 