From Wikipedia: “Kalanchoe, also written Kalanchöe or Kalanchoë, is a genus of about 125 species of tropical, succulent flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, mainly native to the Old World. Only one species of this genus originates from the Americas, 56 from southern & eastern Africa and 60 species in Madagascar.”

When I bought this plant, along with the others, I had no idea that it was Malagasian.* (I even had no idea that someone or something from Madagascar was ‘Malagasian’, until I hear a concert of music from Madagascar years ago.) The Wikipedia article also says that some species of Kalanchoe can grow to 20 feet in height. Perhaps one day, my Kalanchoe (whom I hereby name ‘Cloey’) will stand in the shade of Arthur, my pet avocado tree. My aspiration for Arthur is for him to grow to 60 feet.

Today’s watercolor experiment:

I cheated a bit today. I used a pencil to lightly sketch the boundaries of Cloey. I wanted the composition to be as centered as possible. After doing so, I used a .20 mm fine-tip ink pen to sketch the leaves and buds, and the petals of the one partially flowering flower.

I used lemon yellow as the first color, since I knew that overpainting with red would yield the orange color of the flower; overpainting with blue would give me the green of the leaves.

The unopened buds were more pink than orange, so I added a bit of white to the cadmium red to color them.

I used a Van Dyke brown for the dirt (it was actually potting soil formulated for succulents), overpainted with neutral gray. I used a couple of different blues to blend with the lemon yellow. Prussian blue gave me a duller green than did the phthalo blue. There were different shades of green present on the leaves, both dull and bright. Since I had just repotted this plant, the leaves were a bit dirty. I used quinacridone nickel to illustrate that.

Kalanchoe Succulent
6″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

As with my other succulent studies (Suffering Succulent, Another Succulent), I re-outlined the leaves and petals to bring out the details.

The sole orange flower stands out a lot more in real life than in my rendering. I will have to keep this in mind and correct for this in my next attempt.

* I don’t know this for certain, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.