Easy Draw Butterfly Step Step For Beginners
Hi guys and welcome back to cool drawing idea. In today’s tutorial video, we’re going to be drawing or painting this lovely blue easy draw butterfly. So, I have drawn or painted this using watercolor pencils. I’ve used the Albert Jura watercolor pencils for this particular drawing. But you can use whatever you want you can also use ordinary colored pencils.
So, your polychromes or whatever you have and you also grab a solvent to do the blending to get similar results. You can also follow this and do blending with a white pencil or burnishing or however. You like but for best results, you’re going to want to grab yourself. Some colored pencils solvent or those watercolor pencils so to start.
I’ve just drawn my outline with a 2b pencil on my Fabriano artistic paper. I started with first for this is just by adding down some light layers of some blue colors. So, we’ve started with a lighter blue, and then I’ve gone in and used some darker blues. A few purples in some of the darker shadowy areas of the butterfly wings.
When I’m adding down the watercolor pencils onto the paper. I’m just using light pressure. You don’t want to go in hard. Because otherwise, you’re going to get like an intense saturation of color. So, I’m just using light pressure. Because then I can go in and activate with water and then build like. I would with colored pencils and a solvent.
So, when you activate watercolor pencils with the water. You tend to get a much more saturated color. So just going in lightly is going to help you not to get too much of that saturated color. In the beginning because once you’ve activated these with water. It’s incredibly difficult to lighten. You can go over with a white pencil or something.
But once you’ve activated with water and you’ve got that underneath that is pretty much going to stay there. So, go in with some light layers add in your lighter tones in your lighter areas. You can even leave some patches of white if you have some light areas and then you can just kind of bleed the paint. The colored pencil over into those lighter areas.
Drawing tutorial for beginners so, you get a nice kind of light wash effect, and then you want to layer up your darker colors in your shadow areas. So, you can see down the center of the butterfly where the two wings meet. I’ve kind of added in this really kind of dark area that’s where you’ve got a lot of shadows. Also, underneath the top of the wings as well. So, you’ve got the top half of the wings and the bottom half. So, where those two areas meet.
I’ve added in quite a bit of darker color and also where the wings kind of almost like go into like a valley towards. The body of the butterfly that’s where the wings tend to be a little bit darker as well. They get a lot lighter as you come towards the outer edges kind of where the wings are lifting up and then more towards the light source. So that’s where you’ve got the lighter area so I’ve kept those ends of the butterfly wings quite light.
How to draw the body I’ve kept quite dark. So, one thing I love about working with watercolor pencils. It’s so easy to create a piece you just lay down your colored pencil your watercolor pencil. You just go in and activate it with water. So, you can see that I started with the lighter areas. Just kind of added some water to those then I’ve used the water in the dark area.
So, you want to make sure that you work from your lighter to your darker areas. Because if you pull from your darker to your lighter areas. You’re going to lose that kind of really nice light effect. You’re going to dampen down that lightness that you’ve already added in. In those lighter areas so make sure that you always work from your lighter areas to your dark areas.
When you’re adding your water or a solvent if that’s what you happen to be using. So, as you can see as I have added down the water to an easy draw butterfly. It kind of makes the area look kind of rough. You do have this really interesting watercolor effect that’s not the look. I was going for here that might be a look that you like. If that’s the case then by all means keep that on your piece.
But for me, I wanted it to kind of look. It was a colored pencil but more of like a painterly colored pencil. You get when you’re blending with a solvent. So, I like to go in with a couple more layers. I’m going to go in with more layers. Because I need a much more intense saturation of color. We need to develop some dark blues. We need to develop those shadows in the wings.
A little bit more as well so you want to wait for your watercolor pencils to completely dry before going in with a second layer of an easy draw butterfly. I believe I waited one or two days for my piece to completely dry. Before going in again and then I’m just doing the same method. I’m using a light hand so I’m using a shading motion just to add down the pencil onto the paper.
Making sure I’m using a light hand that’s important. I’m working in the direction of the wings. As well so I’m not kind of going in crazy directions. But I’m not necessarily like making defined strokes of easy draw butterfly. I’m keeping everything nice and soft by using the side of the pencil and by adding in some smooth shaded lines to create the veins down the down.
The wings easy draw butterfly as you can see, they’re nice and dark in comparison to the kind of luminescent effect of the wings. I just went in with I think it was a dark indigo pencil and just applied a little bit of pressure. So that had a little bit more of an intense color there. It made those veins pop out there. I think towards the end we go through and add a little bit of a white pencil to distinguish.
Those lines a little bit more but for now we’re just going to make sure that we can see them. They’re there by going in with a few of the darker colors of easy draw butterfly. A little bit of a heavier pressure so this is kind of the only time. You will want to use heavy pressure. If you have some heavy-set shadows. As well that’s when you want to go in and use a little bit more pressure.
Because when you go in and activate with water. You’re going to get a lot more of an intense color by adding a lot more of that pigment from the pencil down in the darker area of the wings. They’re not just made by using dark indigo and adding in some dark sepia or even black. I’ve added in quite a bit of light red-violet some blue-violet lots of those kinds of pink tones.
As well to make sure there’s a lot of depth in the shadow. Those darker parts of the wings you want to make sure that there’s like a lot of blue tones or similar tones to the color of the wings. But also adding in some complementing colors is going to help create that kind of really luminescent kind of iridescent effect.
As well one thing I love about using these Albert dura watercolor pencils is the fact. You can add down your pencil then you can activate it with water. You can go in with the white and it acts as an incredible highlight. So, you don’t have to worry too much about preserving lighter areas. Because you can just go straight in with that white pencil.
It’s like bam it’s opaque it’s white and it also works as a good blender. As well so I’m using the white colored pencil and one of the lighter blue pencils to just increase the kind of highlighted area of these wings. Just to help blend the pencil all together as well. So, for this piece, I just blended twice with the water. So, I’ve added two light layers of the watercolor pencils and blended.
So, one light layer blend with the water wait for it to dry of easy draw butterfly. Add another layer blend with water wait for it to dry and this is the final layer. We’re adding on now and you can see just how different the piece looks on the left compared to the right. So, the left looks nice and smooth kind of got this nice fluffy almost powdery effect of the butterfly wings.
Which is perfect and that’s created just by layering. Just by using a nice soft shading motion and blending the colors as well. So, on this last layer, I am increasing the pressure. A little bit more on the pencils. Because I’m not going to go through and activate too much with water again. So, I can increase the saturation of the color with colored pencils. The watercolor pencils themselves but by adding this final layer.
We’re just going to smooth out any kind of watercolor patches. So often when you add water and activate these pencils. It kind of does leave it looking a little bit patchy which again is fine. If you want to go for that kind of look. If you want it to look like you’ve used watercolor pencils or watercolors themselves. That’s completely fine but for me I just wanted it to look.
It was a colored pencil piece so I just want to make sure that everything is nice and smooth. I’ve got all of those lovely colors blended out and there are none of those kinds of watery effects on there even though. I have used watercolor pencils so as I said a little while ago. I’ve used the white pencil around the veins of the wings just to kind of try and highlight them and make it look.
As if they are protruding a little bit from the wings. So, you’ve got that dark vein I think I use the dark indigo mixed with a little bit of dark sepia. I’ve used the white pencil directly next to it. So that you’ve got that direct contrast of the highlight and then the darker vein area. It just makes it look. They’re protruding from the wings a little bit more and it’s just casting a little bit of shadow.
So, I’m adding the white pencil to the top of the vein. The light source for this is kind of coming from the top of the paper, not from the top of the butterfly. So, I’m adding the highlight on the top side of the vein and that just makes it look. As if there’s a little bit of shadow cast on the bottom half. It makes it again look a little bit more three-dimensional.
As if it’s popping out of the wings a little bit. So, all in all, there’s not too much technique involved. When you’re using a watercolor pencil. You just need to remember that when you are adding your initial colors down. You want to go in with a light hand and activate it with water. Because those colors are going to become nice and saturated.
They’re going to become so vibrant wait for that to dry and then go in and increase. The saturation by again adding another light layer and then activating with water to see kind of where you’re at and then. You can go in and smooth everything out. If you need to watercolor pencils are a versatile medium to use. I enjoy using them alongside colored pencils.
So, I could have added some details and everything with my polychromos pencils. But I decided to continue and add in the details and everything with the actual Albert dura watercolor pencils themselves. I’m pleased that I did because this is an incredible piece. It was so easy to do and I love the outcome of it. I hope that I have given you guys some useful tips. When using your watercolor pencils as well and creating. Your butterfly or whatever it is that you want to create.
