how to paint with watercolor: a butterfly tutorial

Add brown, then orange closer to the body.

Mix a dark color with Viridian and Dioxazine Violet and paint around the white spots on the butterfly's wings.

Add orange to warm the mixture and make it brown for the areas closer to the body.

Use less water to make the darker colors.

And obviously more water makes lighter colors. That's an important key of how to paint with watercolor.

When you near the butterfly's body start adding orange.

Blend the orange into the brown.

Continue painting the butterfly wings.

Please note just a bit of butterfly anatomy. Butterflies have four wings and six legs.

The wings and legs are attached to the thorax, the fat part of the body behind the head.

You can faintly see the division between the fore-wing and the hind-wing going at an angle up to the thorax.

Paint the dark border on the hind-wing.

Feather the colors together by running a clean damp brush along the juncture of the dark and orange.

The water is the important part of learning how to use watercolor.

Paint the body with some highlights.

Using more water produces lighter colors.

If necessary, darken the areas around the white spots. Adjust the shape of the white spots where needed.

Now turn your attention to the butterfly's body.

Paint the left, shadow side dark. Lighten the value toward the light and leave a few highlights for interest.

The body is partially covered by the edges of the hind-wings. The tail end of the body peaks out behind the wings.

Paint the veins on the wings.

Add a few dark veins to the fore-wings with brown.

Lightly suggest veins in the hind wings.

We will paint the butterfly head and antenna after the flower is painted.

Look over your butterfly. Is there enough contrast between the white spots and their surrounding black?

Does the orange color transition smoothly into the brown?

When you are satisfied with the butterfly, move on to the flower and foliage.

Start painting the flower.

Paint the flower with dark and light purples.

Loosely paint the flower with a stippling motion.

Use your red-purple, Quinacridone Violet on the light side of the flower.

Use the darker, cooler blue-violet, Dioxazine Violet on the shadow side.

Get more tips on how to use warm and cool colors.

Notice the masking fluid preserves the white highlights on the flower.

Also, paint around some areas leaving the white of the paper.

Paint the leaves.

Mix and use a variety of grey-greens for the leaves.

Mix the greens from Viridian and Dioxazine Purple.

Paint the leaves with a variety of light and darker greens.

Leave a center vein unpainted on some of the leaves.

For added variety paint the center vein darker on other leaves.

We will paint the stem after the masking fluid is removed.

Start painting the background.

Dampen the area you will be painting, so the paint will flow on easier.

Loosely paint the background with a soft flat brush.

Loose backgrounds are one of the joys of learning how to paint with watercolor.

Start the lower left corner with Dioxazine Violet.

As you start adding the greens to the background it will grey the violet so it is not so intense.

We want the background to compliment not detract our attention from the focal point.

Continue painting the background.

Change to warmer violet and a variety of greens farther up in the painting.

Use a smaller brush for the tighter areas.

Paint lighter, subdued greens or lavender in the background areas.

Then using the smaller brush paint some darker greens or violet on top of the lighter areas.

Mingle the background colors together to make them out of focus.

The out of focus background pushes it farther back and brings the butterfly, flower and leaves forward.

Make the background out of focus.

Above the flower a spray of water mixes the background colors to make them look out of focus.

Use water on the edges of the background to soften the colors as they merge into the white background.

In the tighter areas below the flower, use a damp brush to mingle the colors and soften the edges.

The wet colors flow together. That's the beauty of painting with watercolor.

Let the painting dry.

Remove the masking to reveal the whites.

The painting is dry when it is not cool to the touch.

Now comes the fun part of painting watercolor. It is always exciting to see the whites revealed.

After the painting is dry remove the masking fluid (the frisket) with a rubber cement pick-up tool or your dry fingers.

When the frisket is removed the white paper is revealed!

Vola - there's our highlights.

Add touches of a pale orange.

One of the tricks of painting good art is to repeat colors throughout the painting.

The butterfly is obviously orange.

So we use a pale orange wash on the edges of the leaves.

The twig in the lower left was painted with brown and orange highlights.

Remember the light source is from the right. So we highlight the right side of the twig with shadows on the left.

Paint the butterfly head and antenna.

The flowers on the purple Butterfly Bush have orange centers.

Lightly indicated some orange in a few places on the flowers.

Now we can finish the butterfly's head.

Paint the butterfly's head and leave highlights for the eyes.

A script liner brush works for painting the slender antenna.