Abstract Watercolor Butterfiles

1. Class Intro: Hello. I'm dating L. A Melon and author and artist here in skill share. Welcome to my class. Abstract watercolor butterflies. Abstract art can take many forms and in today's class will take elements from the anatomy of a butterfly to create ink drawings suggestive of his delicate insect. We'll start by taking a brief moment to study the visual elements of a butterfly. I've included a page from my sketchbook on the Anatomy of a Butterfly, and you can find that page as well as reference diagrams in the project section for this class. From there we'll start lessons on five butterflies in various configurations in flight side view and 3/4 view. To achieve our abstract perspective, well created a scratch of our butterfly shape, as well as the cells and markings for each butterfly. Then we'll use various watercolor techniques to create shading and texture for both the subject of our painting, the butterfly as well as the background for each image. For your class project, select one of the five butterflies demonstrated in class and create your own. You can use the colors similar to the ones shown or use coloring from your favorite butterfly, please take a photo of your work and posted in the project section. We should have followed me here on skill share to get notified of future classes. And please consider leaving a review. Thanks for joining me. Let's get started painting. 2. Class Supplies: for our abstract watercolor butterflies class will need some basic watercolor supplies. Will use a tub for water, some paints and a palate. I have some larger brushes here, four and a six, and we won't need detail work, so we won't need finer brushes. But if you'd like to add details, by all means you're welcome to I have some archival permanent marker here, these air microns. I have a one and some threes and will use this to add the shape toe are butterflies. After we add our color, I have the class template, which you can download in the project section with five different butterflies, and then I have some five by seven sheets of paper. I also have a white gel pen for adding some highlights and details after we're done. 3. 3 Abstract Ink Drawings: So the first step in my paintings is because I want them to be abstract is I'm going to make a very light quick sketch with my permanent marker. I'm not even going to start with pencil. You can start with pencil if you'd like. The point of this is very abstract work, and we're taking advantage of the butterflies and how light they are and airy and, um, have a look. So with that, we can also refer toothy anatomy of a butterfly sheet that's in the project section, where have listed the different body parts and wing parts. And that's not relevant in terms of we're not trying to make it precise, but when we have enough knowledge of the basic anatomy, we could make something abstract that still refers back to the original design. 4. Butterfly #1: Ink Drawing: So for here, I'm gonna sketch this butterfly. I'm gonna stop. Start with the bar body, the head, the abdomen and the thorax. A three part part body. And so I'm just gonna make a shape. I'm not gonna go for perfect shapes here. So here I have the three part body. And so from here, I'm gonna just try and make the abdomen and the thorax here a little bit bigger. And then I'll play with the abdomen a little. Give it some texture and the same thing with my head from here. A work on this major wing start here, go up again. Just loose strokes. And I'm gonna add the next, the middle and the wings behind. Now, at the details, I'll add the antenna and the legs. So they're normally six legs and their jointed, but I don't want to make it look like an eyelash or anything. I'm just gonna add the four legs here. If I want, I can go back in and increase the size of these wings down here. Now, I'm gonna switch to my larger my, um, number one graphic pen, and I'm gonna add just some cells over here. These are the parts of the like, my channa Monarch Butterfly, where the rest of it is black jail coloring now and I'll just leave those areas uncultured . Maybe I'll make some smaller ones. And again, I'm not trying to be 100% precise with my coloring because it is abstract. That texture is very interesting. And I also don't want to smooth edge on the butterfly and I'll repeat this procedure in all the wings, come back here and add some notches. Same thing here, just so the lines aren't perfectly smooth. Then I'm gonna add just my cells. So start with a big sell here on the four wing and the hind wing, and then I'll just go in here and make my veins. Some of the veins branch out and some don't. You just want to prevent yourself from doing either parallel or straight lines on this part . And here I'm using some of the ink from the original sketch with the smaller knitted, and that just gives a different look. I'm gonna go over here just on the back part outlining my body shape, and this one is completely drum 5. Butterfly #1: Watercolor Layer # 1: Because butterflies come in many colors, You can find a butterfly to match any colors you'd like to paint. You can look online for some examples of realistic butterflies and try and match the coloring. I'm gonna do a 1st 1 I'm gonna paint the 1st 1 I'm gonna paint is gonna be inspired by the monarch butterfly with the orange and yellow wings. Good. Wet my brush. And I'm gonna just what? The background around the butterfly with lots of water. And so if I get any bleed off, it'll go right on to that. And I'm little I'm looking for that effect with our abstract painting. Then I'm just gonna wet the center of the butterfly. Now mix my colors. The monarchs are orange and yellow, so I wanna have assortment of those colors ready to go. And here's where it gets very pretty with just the Grady INTs in the blends. Somebody dropping my darkest color first closest to the body. I'll just add a few splotches of it around the butterfly as well. Go back in, clean my brush and move that background color. You don't want any harsh lines? Pull the color right up to the butterfly again. I'll go back in with my darker color. Not worried about getting the entire butterfly wing covered. Just will do some of the back wings again. I'll add another layer on the background. I go in with a wet brush, Move that color around. Then I'll come in with my next color, my next lighter color. I'll drop in some color of that right onto the wings in a few spots in the background again , I'll blend out that color. And now I'm gonna go in with my yellow because we have that black outlined in the white paper. It creates a nice contrast. Gonna put a little yellow purposely outside of the butterfly and let that color bleed. Gonna come back in here with some green. This is just a dark green Get a nice deep color on my brush, Not too wet. And I'm just gonna create like a leaf as if the butterflies landing on a leaf. So just drop some of that shape and we'll let this layer dry 6. Butterfly #1: Watercolor Layer #2: our first layer has dried here. And as you can see, the colors really faded. I'm gonna go in there and reinforce them with some darker colors. So I'm mixing up my three colors again, made a coming. I'm just gonna drop in some color. Then I'll come back, man, My second color. And I'm gonna try and make some of the times that I dab it on. Bleed with the first color that gives the nice watercolor effect. And then I'll go with the lightest color and add some spots of that as well. Gonna switch to a smaller brush. And with some of that green, I'm gonna work a little bit on this leaf here. So I want that shape of a leaf to come through belief. And then maybe a 2nd 1 here in the background. Take my brush with just some clear water. Find out those lines for here. I don't like the way this looks, so I'm gonna go in there with a wet brush and really blend this out some more. And after it dries will work on it a little bit more. Come back in with my yellow color, add a little bit of a background again blurring those lines. So there's no hard edges, and I'll add some more of that color, the medium orange and then just a tad of the darker orange. Well, let this strike will come back and work on our background. 7. Butterfly #1: Watercolor Background: never work on this butterfly to give the background some effect that I like. I didn't care for the way that my leaves looked, but I do like the way they kind of create a shadow back there. So I'm gonna work on that a little more. It makes a dark green so green with a little bit of orange, Create a nice sharp point of my brush and I'll turn my page around and I'll just drag, um, like a vine or stem a belief. And then I'll just pull a few leaves here, do the same thing on this side with a very light hand on my brush, barely touching the paper. Come down here, make another one. It's all about the shape here again were echoing what we have in the top of this butterfly here. By not filling in the leaves fully, that will add a few over here is well, it would take some black with my brush and go over some of the area on the top margin here , just adding a little more black to it. When I painted over the marker with the yellow, it kind of made it fade somewhat so I'll go back in with my black marker, not with my black paint over where the marker was and make that nice and sharp scree outline that lower wing. And then I'll just go back on the body here and a little bit of pigment could do a little spatter with orange and yellow. My main focus I'm trying to make sure is the butterfly. I don't want to get distracted by the leaves, so I'll go in there with some yellow and just a little bit of the stark orange. Well, what the strike? 8. Butterfly #2: Ink Drawing: for a second butterfly. I'm going to start with my five and Ulster again. I'll start with the head, the thorax and the body and the abdomen here, all parts of the body. And then I'm gonna work on this giant wing. They didn't like the shape. I'll go back and added in a little further and then a little bit Hind wing. And then I'm gonna add a little wing on the side here because he's in flight. So it's not the same size as the other two. I'll come back and I'll add my little Nibs. Well, I still have my smaller name here. I'm just gonna add some antenna, and I think I'll make these a little clubbed the end. And I'm not gonna add legs on this one. I'll go back with my number one pen, my larger pen, and I'll add some of those themselves. And by keeping it very very, it will allow the color that we added pigment with the paint to really shine through at a big sell. First, a little color in here, fill in some of that on our last one at the main cell and then go back in come over here, Make a very light mary body. Just get a highlight by darkening the section over here closest to the body at our cell here. And this one will be ready for painting. 9. Butterfly #2: Watercolor Layer: for this butterfly. I'm gonna use the colors red and blue Little untraditional for a butterfly But I like the way it looks So instead, the other one where I had the background bleeding I'm gonna just work my paint just around the butterfly, leaving some spots on wet So here I have just the water going over the body a little bit And then I'm gonna go in with my red so I'll mix my red Make sure it's the right vibrancy that I want We'll add a little green to that and a little more red and then I'll drop some of the color and I think I'm gonna have the red be closest to the butterfly and the blue as you further get away from the wings. So with that in mind, I'm gonna make the red, um, going up the biggest wing higher than on the bottom biggest wing and then the same thing back here. I'll add some of my red leaving a little space. Um, between the two wings, the the 24 wings. Well, that's drying. I'll go in here with some blue, make a nice rich blue, and I'll just drop in my color who had a little more pigment and because I don't want any harsh edges, I'll go around the edge of my butterfly and just make sure there's nothing too harsh. If it is, I can have either more pigment or more water to blend that out. And before this dries, like to go in there with some even more red and drop that closest to the body. Well, let this layer dry and we'll come back and work on the next layer. 10. Butterfly #2: Watercolor Background: Now that this layer is mostly dry can see the color has faded somewhat, but it's still nice. I like the lines in the shape. I'm just gonna work on adding a little bit of a leaf here. It will take some of my green just on my brush and just create a very organic leaf shape. I'm going with some later green blend that together on and some green throughout gonna go and makes a little bit of this red. Just add a few little spots closest to the body maybe around some of these cells. Here, I'll take my color with the red on it on my brush. I'm just gonna add a little bit of spatter. And then I'm going with my blue as well that I have from the back here. I just had a little spatter as well. I think I might take a little bit of that green there. We have one abstract butterfly 11. Butterfly #3: Ink Drawing: for a butterfly. We're gonna work on this one here, starting with my number five micron pen working on the head, the thorax in the abdomen, just outlining a shape. And then I'm going to start with that wing, and then I'm gonna go and make the higher part of it. And on this butterfly, only two wings air showing. I think I might elongate that. Make that more of a tail, and I'm gonna co back in. No. And my vein ing. Same thing here. Go back in to the body and I'm gonna use make my antenna. I think I'll put a few legs on this one. Maybe we'll haven't perched on a flower going with my larger pen. And this one. I'm not gonna worry about making the different cells here in this border area. This margin area just gonna try and fill that in If I leave some spots on done, that's okay. Pull it down a little into the vein ing, and then over here on this one, this major cell, I'm gonna add just a little rough spot of dark. I'll go over my lines again. Same thing with this hold down here. Can I add that dark area, I'm not so and I'll finish the outline again. It's like I did with the others. Get a dark in the area closest to the body. Just give a little bit over here, and this one is drawn. 12. Butterfly #3: Watercolor Layer: for this butterfly. I'm gonna make a combination of turquoise and blue for the wings, so I'll start with my making mike mixing my colors first, I'll add some green and some blue until I get the right shade that I'm looking for. It's rather pretty. And then I'll make my blue right next to it. And then I'm gonna add 1/3 shade of more green. It will give me a nice blend. My brush. I'm gonna wet my brush and I'm gonna start on the hind wing here the bottom way. How wet the entire wing. And then I'm gonna add some of this blue closest to the body. I'll go back in with my teal, had that next and then finally at this green closest to the edge, I'll repeat the procedure with a four wing with blue closest to the body than teal. And lastly, the green. I'm gonna come back in here with my dark blue and add a little orange to it, the opposite of it on the color a wheel because me a very deep blue. And I'm just gonna put some of that right on the body. I'll let these layers dry. We'll come back and add some more 13. Butterfly #3: Watercolor Background: to work on the background for this blue and turquoise butterfly Gonna work on some yellow and orange is first thing I'm gonna do is just wet my brush and then work on wedding The background I want really saturate the paper so that it absorbs a lot of the pigment going to go in there My yellow I'm gonna add some spots of yellow and I'm gonna work on adding them far away from the butterfly, right on the edges with just a little close up so that I have some pigment to blend. Then I'll go in there with my orange yellow and I'm gonna add some of that as well as we get closer to the butterfly. My Barack background will dark in a little, come back to my original yellow work on blending that out. Then with a wet brush, will come in here, re wet the area closest to the butterfly. Then I want to add my darkest orange that I've already next closest to the butterfly and then letting it bleed out into that yellow orange that we added, I'll go back in leaving more pigment. So it's nice and saturated. Closest to the butterfly. Then I'll take my yellow orange and go around the edge a little more just to keep that moving. And to get a little Grady int from the original darker pigment. Go back in with my light yellow furthest away. Now, you take some of that teal that we mixed and just spatter it a little bit. I want to tie in the colors of the butterfly with a background and I'll come back in with that greenish steel. And lastly, I want to add a little bit of black. It'll tie in the vein ing as well. You take a little that orange. I think that will help coordinate it a little. There we have this butterfly. 14. Butterfly #4: Ink Drawing: here We have another butterfly in flight when we're looking at all four of the wings. But again, once again, start with the body and I have my paper turned in a landscape format instead of up and down could make sure the head is at an angle. And then I just follow them thorax and the abdomen to maintain that angle. Adding my texture. Start with the biggest wing first. Then we're gonna add the swing here, this nice long tail. I'll come over here to this side and and this wing, and it kind of goes almost straight up. And then this wing here has just a tale showing. I'll add my antenna, pull this one just a little bit in, gonna add my big cells first, and then I'll have the vein ing for this butterfly. After I get done with the vein ing, I'm gonna add some spots. So I'm going to switch to my larger pence and I'm gonna add some spots that go around the parallel to the outer part of the wing. Here, do that with all of them. It starts about 3/4 of the way up the wing that I'm scared a few more dots throughout one dot in the cell, and then I'm just gonna outline right on the outer margin and the inner margins, each of the wings from hero outline cells and the body If I want to get a few more dots and there we have this butterfly. 15. Butterfly #4: Watercolor Layer: for this Butterflied like to mix some purples to take my brush Makes my color over here gonna add some purple in some blue and I'll work on making three colors Three different shades of this purple makes him blew in with one part of it And then over here oh, makes a lighter version So more purple and some blue So for this I'm gonna wet my four wings first And I'm going to start with my bluish purple And I'll put that closest to the body We'll go back in with my deeper purple And then lastly, I'll go with my lighter purple gonna have to mix more of that color. So I took light blue and purple and drop some pigment in there. While this is still wet, I'm gonna go in with some deep blue and just drop in a little bit of it. Closest to the body as it's drying, the color gets later. So I want to be sure to add my pigment. So it's nice and vibrant. And now, in the lower wings, I'm gonna add a different ratio. So instead of being so much blue, gonna add more purple here We have a little bit of a bleed from the upper wing. It looks really nice. One of the, um, unexpected effects of water color. And then I'll come in here with my lighter purple. It makes a little more. Would that take some of that color? We just mixed and add it to the body as well, and we'll let this layer dry. 16. Butterfly #4: Background: for this butter from why, I'd like toe make it look like, um, like it's in a fog and mist. So would it take those colors that we used on the actual butterfly, and I'm gonna mix very light versions of them. Okay, so I'll start with my purple blue, the color that kind of matches the wings here. And I'll go around some areas now, going with a wet brush and kind of pull that out, working a little bit of this time, adding some more pigment as I like. I'll turn my paper around, and as I go up, I'm gonna change my color Slightly. Two colors will bleed. You can always go back in and add a little more, and I'm not looking to really necessarily fill the whole page with a background as just create a little bit of bleed from the actual butterfly. So just go in with a wet brush, causing those colors to run Children the page. If necessary, that would take just a little bit of color and drop it in. As it dries. It'll get much lighter, more subtle, and we'll let this completely dry 17. Butterfly #5: Ink Drawing: we'll get outlined This butterfly here and I'm just gonna use the number five pen on this one again, starting with the head moving onto the thorax and the abdomen. Gonna make that large wing only partially. And then we'll come back for this hind wing. I am my antenna, really emphasizing the length of them. I'll add my large cells and then my vein ing. I'm gonna take my five here and I'm just gonna add some dots right around the edge of each of the wings. We'll create another margin and kind of a border. Then I'll do the same thing with this swing, and we'll leave that just like that. 18. Butterfly #5: Watercolor Layer: for this butterfly because we used a delicate hand with the pen. I'm gonna be used delicate colors. So I'm gonna mix a very light pink No, makes a pink next to it That's just a little bit darker. And then, lastly, all makes a very dark pink by comparison. Still a subtle color, but darker than the other two that we have here. So with my brush, I'm gonna just kind of wet the wing, leaving some white dry spots on the paper. And now I want to mix a lot of the colors. So start with the latest pink, and I'll drop that in, go in with even more. I don't want the color to get washed out from the other colors. We next going with my medium pink, and I think I'm gonna stick to the top part, not the complete outer part, but the top part of the wings. And then I'm gonna go in with my darkest color and just do the furthest part out. I could add a little bit of the pink to the body. Well, let this layer dry. We'll work on the background 19. Butterfly #5:Background: for a background for this very delicate butterfly. I'm gonna mix up a greyish green Very soft, very subtle. So I'll take some of my dark green, a little bit of orange and then some water here I have a pretty green and so I'm just gonna create strokes as if it was in the grass. I'll go back in barely touching the paint onto the brush onto the paper. I'm gonna go in and just make a one little section Not too much Just a little bit darker Can get a nice sharp point on my brush Just add a little bit more And I want the graphs to flow And I'm gonna flip my painter painting over and very quickly Just create a little bit of a sky Gonna take a little bit of blue And I'm gonna wet the top of my painting here Not quite up to the grass Get a nice webpage And then I'm gonna drop in some blue I just The sky is deeper blue the higher you go So I wanted to make the top of it just that much dick Darker blue You know I'm going with a brush Just blended out somewhat I don't want to over work this and there we have a very subtle pink butterfly 20. Finishing Touches: So here we have our completed paintings. Um, this is a stage where we'll go back and look at any final touches we want to put on them. What I did was I sprayed the back of the painting with a little fine mist, put a paper towel over and then pressed it under some heavy books. So this way, my paintings are now flat again. So for the final touches for this one, I'll go back in with my dark marker, my larger pen, and any areas that I want to make sure really black. I'll just add some more black marker here, might outline this wing and then with the highlighter, the white. If there's any spots I'm gonna add, a little weight will do that as well. For next one. The same thing. I'll go back in with some of the thing here and outline the body. This is the number five pen, the medium point, and I'll fill in these little clubs here for this one. I like the way this one looks. I'm gonna leave it just as it is. Here. We have this one. I might just outline some of these little spots here with white and then for our delicate one. I like it just the way it is here. 21. Class Wrap Up: in today's class, we worked on five different butterflies. Let's take a closer look at those. So for the final touches for this one, I'll go back in with my dark marker, my larger pen and any areas that I want to make sure really black. I'll just add some more black marker here, might outline this wing and then with the highlighter, the white. If there's any spots I'm gonna add, a little weight will do that as well. For next one the same thing. I'll go back in with some of the thing here and outline the body. This is the number five pen, the medium point, and I'll fill in these little clubs here for this one. I like the way this one looks. I'm gonna leave it just as it is here. We have this one happy with the way this one looks like. I might just outline some of these little spots here with white and then for our delicate one. I like it just the way it is here. I look forward to seeing your abstract butterflies, please poster working the project section or on social media and be sure to tag me hashtag Daniella Melon artist. Thanks for joining me. If you've enjoyed this class, please consider leaving a review and be sure to follow me here on skill share. 22. Bonus Class: Closer Look at Drawings: Here's a little more up close version of drawing the butterflies. The main thing. There are a few parts we want to make sure we emphasize to make our abstract butterfly. We want to have three parts for the body and head segment. So we have the head, the body and the abdomen, and you can play around with the proportions. I like to have the largest part B the center part here the thorax because this is where the wings connects to. But you can feel free to play it with those proportions to make your own butterfly the next thing for our first butterflies. You want that four wing, the one closest to us to be largest. So it connects from the abdomen, bellows out and then comes down. And so the top half is much heavier than the bottom half for their hind wing on. This one will come down around. It doesn't go beyond the the line of the first wing. It comes down here and that's its major dominant part. So if I look at this, what I see is this wing has a nice, big rounded top, and this bottom wing has around it bottom when I want to draw the wings that are in the background for this particular version of the butterfly. I want this one to fall below the top of the wing and a little lower, and then the same thing with the background. The back hind wing. All I have to do now is at my antenna, and I have a very primitive and yet effective butterfly for the second butterfly that's facing the opposite direction on what makes this one unique is that it's three wings are exposed. All three wings are very different sizes and shapes, and the body is curled. So make a little head. We'll make the thorax and then the abdomen and see how this one is more linear, and this one has a curl to it, and you could again play with the proportions and play with the angle of the curl. I start with the biggest wing, which is the four wing, and then I'm gonna use at the Hind Wing, which is the next largest, and then because it's in flight, that 2nd 4 wing is going to be very strange looking by comparison, it's not gonna be full. It's gonna be, Ah, 3/4 view. So we come here and around and down, and there we have the three wings again. We can just add the antenna and you have another recognizable butterfly, a completely different shape for the 3rd 1 It's facing the way the 1st 1 was facing again. We'll start with the body in the head. So I have the head here, the abdomen, I'm in the thorax and the abdomen, and now it only has two wings exposed. So I make the first wing and then the second wing. I can play with the different depths and, um, designs on the inside to make this one really stand out. I could turn this into a very elongated tail if I wanted to do that on this butterfly. And then I just again and the antenna for the next butterfly Here. This is when we have four wings showing and it's more wide than tall again. I start with the body and the head, and so here I'm just playing with shape. I'm gonna add the largest wing first, which is on the right, the four wing, and then I'll add the wing beneath it behind wing is pretty large itself, and then on the other side here it's in flight. So we're seeing only a portion of the wing. But a good portion, I'd say 3/4 of it or so And then we have a little hind wing with the tail again and the antenna. And now we have yet another view of our butterfly. And for our last one again, it's a two wing version, and that's a very simple one. This is the one we did we designed very airy with pink. So here I have a little head thorax, the abdomen. I have a very large four wing, but it the hind wing is in front of it. So I only do a partial designed. And then here I do the behind wing again. I had my antenna and I have our five versions. Very simplistic drawing and very primitive butterflies that will be at our colors really come to life.