Hiroki Takeda is a watercolor artist with almost 25k followers on Instagram. The art you can find on his page is mainly animals that are painted using floral motifs and plant parts. 

Hiroki is currently working with a management company TRiCERA, a global art marketplace who helps connect people in Japan and overseas by selling original paintings. It is possible to buy his art online and he sells his work internationally.

Bored Panda has reached out to Hiroki’s management team and when they responded they mentioned that Hiroki Takeda is one of their most unique talents.

We wanted to know more about what inspired this one of a kind painting style using floral and plant patterns to depict animals. Turns out, the artist's mother loved flowers and greenery so since he was young, he was always surrounded by such an environment both in the garden and indoors.

So when it came to ideas what to paint it was only natural to take inspiration from his surroundings. Hiroki told us, “I knew I wanted to draw pictures with flowers and plants as motifs when I was searching for original artworks. When I was looking at pictures of animals, the flow of their hair looked like leaves, and the scales of iguanas looked like a collection of flowers. At that time, I felt that there might be some unique expression that I can apply to my paintings.”

What also draws the eye in the paintings is that they are made with watercolors that are not that easy to manipulate, but obviously it’s worth it as the results are amazing. 

Hiroki told us that he had watercolor classes at university and he fell in love with them there, “I was shocked by how beautiful the watercolors were painted by the special instructor I met there. I learned about the beauty of watercolor as an art medium, and he taught me about it.”

Of course, every artist evolves and develops, searches for new ways to improve or challenge themselves. Hiroki thinks that his painting style will evolve even if he won’t want it. He says, “I am never satisfied with my expression, and I can only imagine that my worldview is just beginning and evolving.”

The paintings are very detailed and the color transitions are seamless. To achieve that Hiroki spends about 5 hours on one painting of an A4 size. He always uses the same colors, paper and brushes.

For his ‘models’, if you could call the animals that, the artist buys high quality photos from the internet taken by professionals. He uses the photos as reference and starts drawing his vision. Hiroki reveals how his works of art come to life, “I don't want to draw too many lines, and I want to create areas that are not white, so I am careful not to draw too much.”

When asked what are his future plans that his fans could look forward to, the artist revealed that he has a couple of goals, “I would like to create a space like Andy Warhol's Factory where fans can come into contact with my works at any time. I want to create a world full of flowers, not only two-dimensional works, but also three-dimensional works, video works, etc., all over the world."

What do you think of Hiroki’s art? Will you be following him to keep up to date with his work? Let us know your reactions to these colorful and unique paintings and don’t forget to upvote the one that spoke to your heart the most.