Get creative with this easy butterfly painting tutorial.
Nothing captures the essence of nature's beauty quite like the wondrous Monarch Butterfly, a symbol of transformation, joy and freedom.
Go on a journey of creating your own masterpiece with this guide to drawing and painting a butterfly.
This step-by-step tutorial is for budding artists or anyone painting a watercolor butterfly.
Butterflies are awesome and it's such a joy to paint them. Here's what we use:
We draw the butterfly before jumping into paint. This greatly streamlines the painting process.
Lightly do a pencil drawing. The images below are ink, so they are much darker than pencil. The guidelines are blue on this page, but they are actually regular pencil lines.
It's always good to have a reference for a realistic painting.
This is a male Monarch with scent pouches on his hind wings.
Draw a center guideline. Guidelines are blue.
Draw the body on the center line.
Add two more guidelines angled down to about one quarter of the paper's width.
Add 2 more guidelines from the shoulders out to about 2/5 of the paper's height.
Sketch the two top wings.
Sketch the bottom edge of the two back wings.
Erase the guidelines.
Draw the veins on the fore-wings.
Start with the large upper vein indicated in red.
Then add the three sections below it. They are parallel with the inside edge of the wing.
Now add the veins to the back wings.
Start with the veins close to the body, A. They are mostly parallel to the body. Add the 2 or 3 attached veins.
Draw the top edge of the black trim on the wings, 4.
Your finished butterfly drawing will look somewhat like this. Draw it or get it on the paper any way you desire.
After the drawing is finished, go over the drawing lines with water-resistant black ink.
Going over the lines with black ink, is what makes this an easy butterfly painting.
We won't have to paint all the black veins later. That makes it easy-peasy.
Five easy steps make this an easy butterfly painting.
We use a #8 brush for the entire painting. The one exception is the white spots and the small designs on the tips of the fore-wings. They are painted with a smaller #4 brush.
We will start painting the fore-wings. They are a redder orange than the hind-wings.
Cadmium Orange is a yellowish orange. We want a reddish orange.
Select a reddish-orange or mix your own by mixing a bit of Cadmium Red Light with Cadmium Orange.
Paint the four orange sections of each fore-wing. Paint right over the black veins.
Moving to the hind-wings, we paint them with Cadmium Orange. It's a nice bright orange.
Don't worry about trying to get the paint on smooth and all the same. Variations make the painting more interesting. They show it's a painting, instead of a photograph.
Winsor Newton cadmium colors do not actually contain any cadmium.
Next, we start painting the black parts of the butterfly.
Black is easy to mix with Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue. A mixed black will have some variations that add interest. You certainly may use tube black.
Paint the butterfly's head and body. Paint the body darker on the sides. Use less paint on the top of the body to give it a rounded form.
If the body gets painted too dark, dab some of the paint off the top of the body with a clean, damp brush.
Paint the inside black edge of the fore-wings.
Recommended colors for your watercolor palette
Continue painting all the black trim on the wings.
It's starting to look like a butterfly. That's the joy of painting.
Paint black around the designs on the ends of the fore-wings.
Paint the white spots and dashes in the black wing edges. They may be handled in one of two ways:
There are more ways to save the white paper besides painting around it.
Have fun with this easy butterfly painting. Paint the Monarch or use the same steps to paint other types of butterflies.
ArtbyCarolMay.com offers a treasure trove of painting guides, ideas and tips to feed your desire to create.