Artist Transforms Animals Into Botanical Gardens in Colorful Watercolor Paintings

Floral Animal Illustrations by Hiroki Takeda

All animals enjoy a beautiful day outside. Well, Japanese artist Hiroki Takeda captures the beauty of this relationship in his series of verdant watercolor paintings. Using a vibrant color palette of pinks and reds, he designs animals that contain a secret garden of blossoms and grass.

These botanical-inspired paintings feature charismatic cats and dogs, hamsters, birds, lizards, and more. In each one, Takeda uses the form of the animal as the outline for a natural paradise. Instead of fleshing out the body with the texture of the species' body, he fills it with different kinds of plant life.

Flowers sprout from the head of a pooch, soft bunches of leaves fill the paws of a kitten, and whimsical vines tangle in the body of a large rhinoceros. Takeda often completes these dazzling compositions with a visit from a wandering butterfly.

You can purchase original artwork via Takeda's online store, and keep up to date with his latest creations by following the artist on Instagram.

Japanese artist Hiroki Takeda creates whimsical watercolor illustrations of animals made up of flowers.

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My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Hiroki Takeda.

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Margherita Cole

Margherita Cole is a Contributing Writer at My Modern Met and illustrator based in Southern California. She holds a BA in Art History with a minor in Studio Art from Wofford College, and an MA in Illustration: Authorial Practice from Falmouth University in the UK. She wrote and illustrated an instructional art book about how to draw cartoons titled 'Cartooning Made Easy: Circle, Triangle, Square' that was published by Walter Foster in 2022.
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