Drawing Orchids: Office Jealousy, Unexpected Growth

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Rebecca Payne. Colored pencil and ink sketchbook drawing.

Jealousy invites the spirit of murder.

Have you ever met someone with a truly jealous heart?

Well, I have.

Drawing Orchids at My Director’s Desk

Back when I worked at Blue Care Network, I supported the director of HR—a woman who kept the most stunning orchids in her office. They were so mesmerizing that I’d sneak in during lunch (when she wasn’t around) and try to sketch them. The drawing above is my first successful attempt. (Turns out, orchids are way harder to draw than they look.)

Drawing Orchids at My Own Desk

Decades later, I landed a great job and thought, “You know what? I’m gonna be that fancy orchid person now.” So I got one for my cubicle. I found it on sale at CVS too; I spent less than $20.

Spoiler: It did not go as planned. (Watch the video for that disaster story.)

Then, my husband—bless him—gifted me one JUST like it. Now, my mission is simple: keep these dramatic little plants alive and keep practicing drawing them. (Both are equally challenging.)

The Drawing and the Care of Orchids is Tricky

Keeping them blooming so I can continue to practice drawing orchids is a challenge within a challenge.

I have more failed drawings than successes. After all this time, I still find them difficult to draw. The flowers hang from a long curving stem that often spills off my page. I have a new technique to try where you mark Xs at the outer-most parts of your subject to be sure to get the whole thing on the page. I will see how this works next time.

The Truth About Drawing Orchids

Unexpected joy: The orchid in the drawing above? I had to rescue it from office crime. And guess what? On its broken stem, a tiny baby orchid (called a kiki—adorable, right?) started growing. I felt it was a message to me about recovering what was stolen from me.

Failure rate: High. (For every decent drawing, there are at least seven that leave much to be desired.)

Biggest struggle: Their stems love to curve right off the page. (New technique I’m trying: Marking Xs at the outermost points so I don’t run out of space. We’ll see how that goes.)

Final Thought

Life—and orchids—have a funny way of coming back around. Maybe it’s not about perfection, but just showing up, trying again, and learning to be kind to your jealous coworkers.

Supplies Used to Make These Drawings:

The artwork in this post was made with ink, markers, colored pencil and God given gifts of seeing things that others don’t.

A gift of an intense love of colors, combinations of colors, and patterns.
A gift of hypersensitivity to sounds, textures, and light levels.
A gift of seeing clearly slight differences in color and tone and also feeling vibrations and tones in others.