How to Paint a Watercolor Butterfly Tutorial

It's good to have a reference.

Here's a photo of a stunning butterfly. For the flower and leaves I went outside and looked in my flower bed. (Sorry I didn't take a photo.) Refer to the finished painting.

For the composition I placed the butterfly to the right of center, facing into the painting.

Lightly sketch the long-wing butterfly with the Butterfly Bush flower, stem and leaves on your painting surface.

Add brown, then orange closer to the body.

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.

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 (middle part of the body).

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.

Paint the body with some highlights.

Assuming the light is coming from the right side.

Use the dark mixture from the wings and paint the shadow side of the body.

Add a little more water to the mixture and paint the right side of the body lighter.

Leave a few highlights for added 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.

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 your watercolor butterfly, move on to the flower and foliage.

Start painting the flower.

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.

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'll paint the stem after the masking fluid is removed.

We don't paint any green on the flower blossom. That's the masking fluid that looks a little green in the photo.

Start painting the background.

Loosely paint the background with a soft flat brush.

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.

Loose backgrounds are one of the joys of painting watercolor. An artistic background contrasts nicely with the detailed butterfly.

We want the background to compliment, not detract our attention from the detailed focal butterfly. What are other ways to create a focal point?

Continue painting the background.

Use a smaller brush for the tighter areas.

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

While the paint is still wet - use the smaller brush paint some darker greens or violet into the lighter areas.

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

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

Make the background out of focus.

Use water on the edges of the background to soften the colors and merge them 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 watercolor.

Let the entire painting dry.

Remove the masking to reveal the whites.

Now comes another fun part of 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.

The butterfly is obviously orange.

So, we use some orange on the leaves and twig.

Use a pale orange wash on the edges of the leaves.

The twig in the lower left was painted with brown with 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.