Introduction to the Heliconia Family

Watch the video below to learn about Heliconias as I take you on a tour of some gardens in Panama. Afterwards, you can follow along to the sketch and paint video demonstration.

Let's Sketch and Paint a Heliconia!

In this video below I'll demonstrate my quick technique for drawing and painting a tropical Heliconia inflorescence. All you'll need to follow along is a light sketching pencil, watercolor or mixed media paper, and simple watercolor supplies. The downloadable PDFs below show a variety of other species of Heliconia to give you more sketching and painting practice, with the first PDF being the closest to the one I am demonstrating (but a tad more complex).

I suggest you print the first handout (Heliconia flower with white background) but simply download the second one ( Heliconia reference photos) since it would use a lot of ink. You can simply use these photos I took in my gardens as drawing references.

Enjoy!