Let’s start by creating a pencil sketch. Start by drawing a frame in which you’ll be painting your butterfly.
Next, put in a light pencil sketch of a butterfly. You don’t need to add all the details of the butterfly, but make sure you’re happy with the overall shape of the butterfly and wings.
Now the fun part, choosing colors and mixing your paints. In this painting, I use a dark gray and dark brown, for the body color. For the wings, choose 2 colors that excite you. In my case, I’ve chosen ultramarine blue, and turquoise.
To start mix a very watery version of your first wing color, in my case ultramarine blue, and fill the full top part of the wing.
Once the top part of the wing has fully dried, do the same for the second part of the wing.
As you wait for the wing to fully dry, mix a dark mix from the dark gray and dark brown for the body of the wing. Make this nice a thick, rather than the watery mix you made for the wings. Use this color to paint the head, body and antena.
Now mix another watery mix for a second layer of paint on the butterfly wings. We’ll do a gradient for this. So we’ll start painting from the corner of the wing and as we run out of color on our brush, we will continue to add water instead of paint to our brush, until there is no color left on our brush.
Once the top wing has dried, do the same for the bottom section of the wing.
Using the colors on your palette, mix a color that you would like to use for the border frame of your painting. I choose to do a light gray/blue border. But feel free to get creative with your border, adding any details you’d like.
Once your wings are fully dry, feel free to add any details or designs you would like to your painting. I choose to use my light gray mix from the border to also add a gray border to the wings, and some very fine veins across the wings. Feel free to explore the inspiration gallery for ideas.
Last step, sign, date and admire your art work.
Great job!