How To Paint A MONARCH BUTTERFLY / STEP BY STEP PAINTING
Hi everybody, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, I'm Joanie Young and welcome.
Don't forget to hit that subscribe. I'm going to be showing you guys step-by-step how to paint
this pretty monarch butterfly on a 14 by 14 primed canvas using the following colors,
and I'll list everything below in the description box.
Now for my background, I'm using a number 50 filbert brush, but you can use any brush that
you want to just create the background and blend the paint around. I'm going to be starting off by
getting my canvas ready, getting it a little bit wet, definitely not dripping, just a little bit
damp so that the paint flows a lot easier and my paint doesn't dry out so fast. I'm going to start
off with my light purple first, and then I'll start coming in with my light ultramarine blue,
and then finally with my regular ultramarine blue. So what I want to do is create a nice background
that's going to complement the butterfly, so I'm choosing complementary colors, and I don't want to
over blend too much so that I'm getting a solid color for the background. So I'm going to softly
start blending one color into the next so we have different sections, different tones of those blues
and purples going on, and then I'll be coming in with some soft sun rays off to the left in a few
minutes. Okay, so after blending around a little bit of that light ultramarine blue, I'm going to
go right into both of my blues now, even a little bit of purple, whatever's left there, but my main
color that I'm using right now is that ultramarine blue, and I'm going to focus on the right side of
the canvas and painting to add this darker color, and again I really want it to look soft and blurry.
This way, when we have a blurry background, it's going to really make our focal point and our
foreground pop, so whatever it is in your painting that you're focusing on, in this case it's the
butterfly and flower. So that's a great tip for you guys, don't make everything in full focus in
your painting. So now I've got a flat brush and it's a little bit wet, I'm taking my white paint
and I'm just going to softly create, just pulling strokes on an angle diagonally like this
from the left corner, just to make some little subtle sun rays, like really really subtle.
I don't want anything too too powerful, again I really want my butterfly and flower to be the
focal point of this painting, but it's really nice to have some soft balance of light and
shadow in a painting. So I'm just going to keep doing this, I've sped this up just a tiny bit
because this took quite a few minutes, quite a while to build this up, and I didn't want you
guys to get bored watching, so it's just sped up a little bit, and I'm just going to keep coming over
with more and more layers of a little bit of water, so equal parts water and paint.
Okay, so as I finish up here with the sun rays, I'm going to wash my brush out and the next two
colors that we're going to be using are sap green, or hooker's green, and a little bit of black,
cadmium yellow, light hue, and I've got a filbert brush. This is a number eight filbert brush,
depending on the size of the flower that you're painting, I would choose a brush accordingly to
the size. So my flower petals, I want to be this size, and I'm choosing a filbert brush because
it's got that nice beautiful round end that helps to make perfect petal shapes. So for the first
layer and stage of this flower, I'm just going to start on the bottom here with a little bit of the
stem and the greenery, the leaves that come right up to the base of the flower bud, so I'm using
a little bit of black and green to make dark shadows for my contrast, and then I'm coming in
with some yellow and overlapping wet on wet. I'm not going to over blend here, I want to have those
streaks and different tones of colors in there. Now taking a little bit of white with my yellow
for my highlights and brightest parts of my leaves, and you can't really see the stem, but just on the
very bottom of the canvas there'll be a little a little line that goes down there, it's kind of
just tucked into my easel right now. So after washing my brush out really well, I'm taking my
ultramarine blue, a little bit of white, and I'm going to start the first base of my flower with
this blue. Now I chose this because there are always a little bit of shadows in between flower
petals, and I want to have complementary colors for my highlights and my shadows. So I'm just
start coming in with a shape and then build up from the shape, choosing how big and how many
petals I want to have. So I always start with more and then decide later on that maybe I just want to
make larger and fewer petals. It's very easy to go over acrylic paint, especially when it's still wet
like this, you can kind of manipulate the paint around and cover it up, but this is just to show
you guys that you can do any flower that you want. Once I've got my basic shape that I want for my
flower, I'm just going to dry this layer of paint off, and this way I don't have to worry about
getting my colors all mixed together and losing that shadow that I need underneath. So now I'm
going to come over with a fresh coat of white and not blend in too much, not try to cover up
everything. I want to have hints of that blue underneath showing in a few different areas
around the petals and in the petals. And then I'm going to be coming in with my colors for my flower,
which will be a light, I've got a luminous, a really light yellowy orange, and it's called
luminous yellow warm, and that's one of my favorite colors to use when choosing
that really light orange that I want for light in my paintings. I use it a lot for
light inside windows of cabins and cottages and my houses, and I'm going to be using it as well
for the wings on our monarch butterfly today. So I'm going to continue adding just a little
bit of white here and there where I want to have the brightest parts of my flower.
The more paint I use, the thicker and brighter and more solid it's going to be,
and the brighter the colors will look after on when I add them over top. So here's my light
ultramarine, or not blue, light luminous yellow warm. I'm taking a little bit of white with it,
and I'm just going to make that fuzzy peachy color, and I'm going to start layering over
very lightly, not pulling too hard. And if you want, you can dry your flower petals off first,
or you can just go over top very lightly, and you'll even create more tones and hues that way.
So I'll continue doing this. I'm going to add this color wherever I want, and then I'm just
going to increase the colors that I'm adding. I'll be incorporating some neon pink, same brand,
Holbein luminous neon heavy-bodied acrylics is what I'm using. So I've got a few different
colors in that brand that I tend to use a lot in my paintings, and you'll be seeing that in
just a moment right here. So here's my luminous neon pink. It's a beautiful, beautiful brand.
It's light fastness. It's excellent. So that means that years from now, your paintings are still
going to have the neon effect because neon paints are known to, the cheaper brands are known to lose
their neon and luminous quality. So if you really want that pop of color to last in your paintings,
especially if you're selling your work, you don't want unhappy customers, you want to pay the extra
money to get good quality paints, and they're just really beautiful to work with. Their tones and
their hues are not like any other paints that I've used, and I've been using these for years.
So I'm just going to keep adding to my flower petals wherever I want to have that pop of color
overlapping on top of that light, luminous yellow warm, and sometimes blending the two together to
make a coral color. So the idea is to just not have every one of your petals all the same solid
color. You want to have highlights and shadows and a few different tones. This will make your flowers
more, this will make your whole painting come alive. That's the trick, that's the key.
You don't want anything to look flat because when it looks flat and all the same color, it's
going to be quite boring. So to create a 3D effect, you need light shadow and multi-tonal colors and
hues. So now I've got a little liner brush, and I'm going to take a little bit of white, yellow,
green, and black. I just want to have a little bit of a shadow, a little bit of a shadow. This is just
subtle, you don't even have to do this if you don't want. I'm going to add a few little lines
in here for the center of my flower. So I'll start off with those colors just for a bit of a shadow,
and then I'm going to make some little areas here, little dots on the tops of those little
stems black. So I'll be adding more contrast and shadow and more highlights.
For my brightest highlights, I'm going to be using white and yellow.
And yeah, so for the darkest part, I'll be using just a little bit of black.
And then I'm just going to come around a few of these petals down here at the bottom,
just to help make them stand out a little bit more from the stem and the underneath base of the
flower. So now I'm just making that bright, bright color, adding a few little dots and dabs with that
white and yellow. Now I'm going to just take a little bit of my yellow, my luminous yellow,
and mix it with a bit of the green and come around. I'll show you the color right here.
So I just want to take these colors with a little bit of water. So some of my warm colors over there,
and I'm going to mix them with a little bit of the green, yellow, kind of all those colors to make a
muddy sort of a tone. And this is just right in between a couple of petals right here for a
subtle shadow. Then I'm going to come around and add some more pink just to make some of the areas
on these flower petals really pop and stand out. Mostly it's because I just really love using this
color. And so I'm just going to continue to add a few more details to the center of this flower,
and then we'll be moving on to the butterfly. Coming in with some lights and shadows here,
highlights and shadows in the center. Again, I'll be using a little bit of black for my little
dots on the top of each of those little stems, and white and yellow for highlights.
Just adding a few little lines and dabs of color here and there on the petals.
So I'm just going to mix up some of my yellow, my cadmium yellow with white now,
and have a little bit of paint on the tip of my brush to work with. That's all I'm using at this
point. So I'm going to change my brush over to a filbert. I'm going to use that same filbert I
used earlier, number eight, and I'm going to start coming in with a little bit of white and water.
So I want to have a loose paint to work with. This is just to start freehanding the body of
the butterfly, and I'm going to start off with right here, the body and the head just in white
first, but we'll come in and add black later on. I want to just freehand this, that's how I enjoy
doing it, but if you guys want to sketch yours out first, that's totally fine. Do whatever
you need to do to make you feel more confident and comfortable when painting.
So this is the first wing here, and now I'm going to come in and add
the second wing, so the top portion of one side of the butterfly. So once I get the shape I want,
I'm going to loosely paint it in with a thin layer of my white. I'll then dry it off and come in with
a thicker amount of white paint, and you want to do this so that when you come in with your color,
it's not going to filter over that bluey, purpley background, because you're not going to get the
bright color. You need a white base in order to get the nice color that you want to add after,
so that it really stands out. And it's going to take a few layers to do this, that's why I'm doing
just a thin layer first, dry it off, and then come in with my fresh coat of white paint. So I have a
nice bright white to fill in with my luminous yellow and my neon orange later on. So I found
that in the past, I've painted a lot of butterflies in the past, and this is just my advice, this is
just what I found over the years. It's really, really hard to try to match if you have to mirror
an image. So for butterfly wings or moth wings, if you're having it side by side,
and you're trying to mirror it and copy identical, the same pattern from one wing to the next,
it's really tough to do that. Not to say it can't be done, it definitely can,
but it's a lot more challenging. And if you want an easier way of painting a butterfly,
then I would advise or recommend doing it from an angle like this. That way you don't have to
try to, you're not trying so hard to mirror that other side and trying to replicate it,
because it can be really hard. And sometimes you can lose your creativity and your joy for
painting when you're trying to make something just perfect and just right. And that's just my advice,
I personally don't enjoy doing that, it kind of starts to feel like too much work for me
and too challenging. Challenging yourself is good though, but if you're, you know,
really not enjoying yourself, then I would try to find a different approach. And I love butterflies,
so this is kind of a nice angle too, it gives that sort of 3D effect and the layered effect
of one wing in front of the other one, and that wing in the background. And I really really enjoy
painting a butterfly in this style, so that's just kind of my two cents guys. But if you're
having a traceable for your butterfly, then it might be a lot easier for you to
mirror and replicate the wing, so that's something to think about too. But if you're just approaching
something freehand, and that's my style, I don't like to use traceables or anything,
I just like to approach stuff freehand. And it's only because I love the feel of a brush,
and that's just the way I like to approach my paintings. But I just thought it might be easier
for you guys to think about doing if you really like painting butterflies or moths. And same with
birds too, just paint it from a different angle so that you're not trying to mirror it.
And now I'm just going to come in and dry this second or third layer of white,
whatever it takes, you might need three layers. And now that it's all dry, I can start the fun
part, and that's coming in with the colors that I love. So I've got my neon orange,
and I've got neon yellow warm. Remember we used that neon yellow warm earlier for the flower,
but now I'm going to take a little bit of white, mix it with my luminous yellow warm,
and start coming in with the first layers on this bottom part of the wing. This is going to be the
brightest, softest in tone color on the wings. We'll be using a little bit of it on the top of
the wings too, but then the wings are going to start to get a little bit stronger and more
saturated in color, so I'll be using a little bit more of my neon orange for those. So I'm just
going to softly pull back and forth, still using my filbert brush for this. And now you'll see I'm
taking a little bit of white and both orange and yellow, not blending too much. I want to get
different variations of tones and hues here on the wings so that it's kind of sort of fading,
one fading into the other. And then I'll be using more of the orange for the wing that's behind,
because it's going to have a slight shadow to it. It's going to be a little bit darker
because this wing is kind of covering it up, right? So that's what really makes your painting stand
out, is paying attention to light and shadow. And that's what I really liked about painting this
butterfly today, was the fact that I was able to achieve that really easily just by changing
the color up. And you can also, if you really want to make it look like it's in shadow, that
wing in the background, you can take a little bit of Watered Down Black with your orange later on
and just do a little filter over it. And Burnt Sienna is another option as well. So I'll continue
along with my neon orange here, sometimes adding a little bit of my neon yellow. And you really
can't go wrong with your yellow or orange that you're going to use and where you put it, because
all Monarch butterflies are a little bit different in color. So sometimes they're a little bit more
on the orange side, sometimes they have a little bit more yellow to them in areas. So don't worry,
guys, you don't have to try and match my butterfly exactly. As long as you have a few of those colors
in there and a few areas that are lighter and darker, your butterfly will look just fine.
So I'm going to get some black on a smaller filbert brush. I've got a smaller brush here now,
and I'm going to start coming in with the black pattern on the wings and part of the body here.
So I'll just paint in the body and then the body of this butterfly is going to have some little
dots, little polka dots on it. So we'll add those later on with either a liner brush or a round
brush. You just want to have something that's got a small pointy tip to the end to make it easy
for you to control your little dots and dabs of your white.
So I'm going to carefully come around the body. I'll add the legs, and I'm using this brush for
the legs, but it would be even better. You'd have a lot more control if you chose to use
a little liner brush or a little round brush with a pointy end on it.
So I'm using my pinky to steady my hand as I come around and outline the wings and add the pattern.
So I just want to make sure that my paint is dry underneath and the purple-blue background is all
dry. So that just really helps you steady your hand when you're doing fine detail work.
So some parts of the black on the wings are going to be wider,
and I'll be gently putting a little bit more pressure on the brush where I want to have those
thicker areas of black, and then letting off as I glide the brush where I want it to be a lot thinner.
That way you don't have to change your brushes up. You can use this brush for all of your pattern
on the butterfly, but keep in mind there are other brushes you can use. So you can,
if you feel more comfortable, using a flat brush, a round brush, a liner brush.
But for these thicker black parts, a liner brush would be a little bit frustrating,
so I would recommend coming in with a larger brush for the thicker black parts on your painting.
And because I approach this freehand, it takes me a little bit longer than if you had a traceable.
So I'm just, yeah, doing this totally freehand, deciding where I want my lines to go. At times,
I'm going to be taking off a little bit. I think there's a couple areas where I gently scrub off
the black paint and go in and make my lines a little bit thinner and take a couple of the lines
out. So I've left that in here so that you guys can see how you can correct something in a painting.
Don't throw your paintings out if you think that you've made a mistake and you think that
you can't fix it. Especially black paint is so scary for my students. They think once they've
added those black lines, there's no going back. And if they've, you know, screwed it up, then
they need to chuck a painting out and start over. But that's not the case. So I want you guys to see
that it's, you can salvage it, you can save it, you can rescue your painting if you've
added black where you shouldn't. And I'll show you exactly how to do that. And it's all about just
gently scrubbing it off, wiping the excess off on a towel. And that's if you're, that's when
your paint is still wet. Now, if your paint is dried and you don't know what to do, acrylic
paint is so forgiving and versatile that you can just paint right over that black. So you'll just
take some white paint to cover that black, dry it off, and then you come over with your color
again. So it'll just take a little bit longer, but it can definitely be done. So don't worry,
don't worry about adding the black guys. You can definitely do this and fix any mistakes that you
make along the way because I've made a few and you guys will see exactly what I do when I come
to that stage. So I'm going to come in with the first start of the pattern here, two long ovals.
One's a little bit shorter than the other one, and then I'm going to add black paint around it.
And then I'm going to come in and almost cut this wing in half down the middle. But then I start to
turn and curve that line over so that it comes towards the head of the butterfly. Now, this is
where I made a mistake because I didn't look at my reference photo carefully enough to count
the lines in the pattern. And you know, it would look pretty left just like this, but
it was bugging me. So you guys will see in just a little bit how I take this paint off
and correct that mistake there. And then I'll come over on this side.
So it's important to make the black areas on the ends of your wings thicker. That way you have
enough room to come in with all your little white dots in your pattern. So here I've got the
paint is still wet enough that I can gently push and wipe it off. And I go over every time I do
this, wash my brush out, wipe it off on the towel, come back in and just push and move that paint
around to reshape this again. But I'm not done. I'll be doing a little bit more as this painting
progresses because I'm still not completely happy with this wing here. But moving on, I'm going to
keep going along here and adding black, just outlining everything. I want this to be a nice,
rich, deep black. I want to have a lot of contrast. And I realized that this wasn't this, the black
was too thick. So here I am doing the same thing, pushing and I just sped it up a little bit.
It took just a couple minutes and then I'll come in and I'll clean this all up again.
Just re-defined my lines and it's fine now. I'm happy with it. So I'm going to come over to the
other side and start working on the pattern. That's going to be a little bit different on
this side from the other one, right, because of the angle that they're on. And we're seeing this
from the other side. Now if you want your butterfly to look realistic, I would recommend using a
reference photo and there's so many reference photos out there for butterflies. But if you want
to make up your own pattern on your butterfly, that's great, even better. I really recommend
doing that. So it's a lot of fun to make up your own patterns on butterflies. I've done that tons
in the past if you want to have something a little more whimsical. But I really wanted to try to
replicate a monarch today the best that I could while filming. It's always a little bit trickier
trying to master that when you're filming because I'm a little distracted by
how the camera's set up, making sure that I'm not in the way. So I'm painting from an awkward angle
so that you guys can see what I'm doing. But I really wanted to share this one with you guys.
I actually haven't had a request for a butterfly in a long time. I did one butterfly when I first
started my channel. It was more impressionistic, whimsical kind of looking. It's fun. I'll leave
a link here for you guys if you'd like to see that one. It's not as long. But there you saw
my other correction I made. So again, just pushing and gently scrubbing off that paint, wiping the
excess off on a towel nearby. So this is coming along nicely. I'm pretty happy with this. It's
important to take the time guys and not get too stressed out. What I like to do sometimes in my
studio is just have some relaxing music on, light some candles. I've got my puppy nearby and it's
nice to just have paintings like this that make you take your time, make you slow down. With my
landscapes, I paint them quite fast. And so it's nice to kind of go back and forth and alternate
between subjects that you paint. And for me, this was important. I needed to kind of slow down and
painting something like this with a pattern on it makes me do that. And I always feel really,
really relaxed and content after. And I also like to show you guys different things on my channel.
I want to show you different ways of painting different things. So I've done so many landscapes
and I know that you guys love them. But I also want to show you different things sometimes. And
who doesn't love butterflies, right? We all love butterflies. And we're all a little sick of winter
at this point. So it's nice to think about spring and the nice warm months ahead coming up soon.
I've actually, we live on the coast and I've got a few flowers in my garden blooming right now.
And I'm coming in with white now with my round brush. I'm going to begin the pattern on the
wings. This is always fun. I love to add the dots and the little dabs of white
on the monarch butterflies. So you really don't have to worry too, too much about this
wing in the back here. It's kind of a little bit more out of focus. So you can make your little
dots and dabs a little blurrier and you don't have to worry about making them too perfect.
But you definitely want to have a few different sizes. So the white dabs or, or dots circles
there on the top of the wing in the corner, there are going to be bigger and a brighter white. I'll
it's going to dull a little bit and oftentimes it's normal if it looks a bit gray. And that's
just because we're trying to go over top of black, right? So it's going to take a few different
layers. And then some of these little circles like this one right here is that golden yellow color.
So I'm using my luminous yellow warm with a little bit of white. And then the other ones,
there's a mixture. I'm just going to make this, these lines here a little bit larger.
They kind of got lost with all these other little dabs. So that's all I did there was
just make them a little bit bigger. I'll be going over those a little bit later too.
And then just kind of alternating making those dots a little bit smaller and smaller as they
go down the backside of the wing. I'll go ahead and add all my little dots and dabs on the body
of this butterfly. Now, as I'm doing this, I'm thinking about some other butterflies that I love.
I love the swallowtail butterflies. Those are those bright yellow ones, and they have
a really beautiful pattern on them as well. They have a little bit of blue circles on the bottom
of their wings. So if you guys want to learn how to paint a swallowtail butterfly, or just watch
me paint one, leave a comment below and let me know if that's something you guys want to watch.
I'd love to do that for you, but you know, I have a lot of requests to get through on Patreon, and
I want to show you guys things that are going to benefit you, that are going to be helpful for you.
So let me know what are the types of things that you guys want to see more of on my channel.
So yeah, leave a comment below. And right here, I'm just adding a little bit more to the legs,
making them look like the butterfly's not floating, but like it's actually standing or
perched on the flower. And if you're having a little bit of trouble with not knowing what to
do with the bottom of the butterfly's legs, you kind of can just camouflage that a little bit.
Maybe put one of the flower petals or the flower petals up a little bit higher,
so that it looks like they're in front of the butterfly legs. So that's something you can do
too, if you're kind of lost and wondering what to do with the ends of the butterfly legs.
So here I'm going to come in and start adding the pattern on the next set of the wings here.
So they're longer lines that come around close to the body and the head, just a couple,
and then it turns into an oval, and then they develop into circles and some ovals. Now again,
on this side, we're going to be painting in some of the ovals and circles that light yellow,
light luminous neon yellow, but most of them are going to be bright, bright white.
And you can see I'm kind of just grazing over some of the lines with a bit of white. I'm even
be taking a little bit of ultramarine blue, because that is very complementary, and it just
adds sort of a powdery look to the wings. And then I'll, later on at the end of the video,
I'll come over and I'll fine tune those lines with a little bit more of my black.
Okay, so let's continue along here. I'm going to redefine the shape here for these three.
Again, just my neon orange, luminous yellow, and a bit of white. Get that really pretty peachy
apricot kind of a color. And now I'm going to kind of just push and wiggle to create another oval,
making it that soft peachy color. And I'll add another one right about here,
a couple of them. And then if it's not bright enough and you see the black through, just go
right back in with a little bit more white. Or you can have a hairdryer like I do close by,
and sometimes I just dry everything off. And then I can come over right away and add another layer
in. And now I'm just going to gently push, and I'm using a round brush here. It's a very, very
small round brush. So I can control the size of the dots by letting off and just using the tip
for my smaller ones, and then gently applying some pressure when I want them to be a little
bit fuller and thicker. Now as we go down the side of this wing, there's double the pattern,
and it's like little tiny, it's almost like it's scalloped. So you can use a little liner brush if
you want. And they're really, really small. So first they're dots, and then it's like little tiny scoops.
But there's going to be double. So you'll do two sets of those, and then we'll have a little bit
of that going on on the top of the wing as well in the front. And again, I'm going to be going over
these white dots and dabs with more of my titanium white as the paint starts to set into the canvas
and dry. It's very, very normal. You're going to just need to have patience and take your time.
It's completely normal to have to do this. It's all part of the process, especially when you're
going over black paint. Now, I like to use titanium white, guys, because it's the brightest
white that you can get. And it also makes the prettiest pastel tones because it's so bright.
When I mix it with my neons to create my pastel colors, I just get the prettiest colors.
Okay, I'm going to go ahead and start the next portion of the top of the wing,
extending my pinky on the canvas so that I have some more control.
Little pushes and wiggles for those larger dots, and then letting off and using just the tip of my
brush for all the smaller ones. Now, you might notice there's a little hint of blue mixed in
with my white there. I wanted that to happen. And then I'm left with just a little bit of a
light blue glow around some of the white spots because it looks really pretty with
the peachy yellow color on the butterfly. They're very complementary.
And you can also add a little bit more ultramarine blue to your black parts of your painting. That'll
give it sort of a satiny, shimmery, shiny look that wings have, especially when the sun's hitting
the black parts of butterfly wings or moth wings. They tend to look satiny like that. So
instead of using white, I would use blue. So I'm just going to add a little highlights and
shadows here and there on some of the legs. So maybe there's a little bit of fine hair and
highlight on the outer sides of the legs. So I'm just using just a little bit of white
and then adding a little bit at the base of where the butterfly's legs are as well.
And I want to make this black line a little bit skinnier now because I feel like it was
just a bit too thick. So there you can see how I've fixed that with the paint that's dry. Instead
of pushing and scrubbing it off because it's all dry and I'm unable to do that, I can just cover
it up with my wing colors, that yellow, luminous yellow and white. I'm coming in now with a full
strength neon orange to make this wing in the background a little bit darker so that it looks
more 3D. So that wing in the front on the right side is brighter, that softer yellow tone to it.
And that just really helps to bring some light into your paintings and
just changes up the whole look of the butterfly, I think, so it's not so flat looking.
You can just make your, you can do whatever you want with your butterflies, you can keep them all
the same color if you want. I just really like light and shadow in my paintings so it's just,
you know, if you guys are wondering how to get more of that realistic look
for your shadow, just tint it with a little bit of black or use what I've done there, just straight
neon orange. I think I mentioned earlier too another alternative for that that back wing
would be a little filter, watered down burnt sienna, that would look really beautiful.
So I'm just coming around outlining some of the lightest parts of this wing with
some of my neon orange and I'm going to work on the very, very bottom part of this wing.
I'm going to add some more black. So I'm really just defining and outlining,
going over all those lines that I want to show up a little bit better now.
But for the most part, this painting is just about done. I'm just coming in with a little
bit more black here and there in between all those little white dots. Now I'm coming in with
fresh white where I want them to be the brightest and really stand out. I'll do the same thing up
here on the top and then with a little bit of black, I'm just going to do a little dab in between,
try to do a little black dab in between each of those white dots on the very outside end of the
wings. Like I said, it has this little scalloped look to it, subtle scallop look, so it's not going
to be completely smooth, the outline of the butterfly wings. They're going to look a little
bit bumpy. And I'm going to come right in here and add a little bit more black or blue. Like I said,
you can mix your ultramarine blue with your black. Another option that would look really,
really pretty and complimentary would be purple, like a violet purple or a dioxazine purple would
look really pretty. And then I just decided, and you really don't have to do this, this is
completely optional. I wanted to make the background look even softer, so I added,
I'm just coming in with a dry brush of white and I'm just going to carefully go around the
background and around each of the wings. But this is just a bonus, optional, you don't have to do
this, but you guys can see your options here, what you like better, if you want it a little bit
softer looking. Keep in mind, it's going to dry even a little bit darker than what I'm showing
here. When it's wet, it's a bit brighter. So as I finish up this painting, I want to thank you guys
so much for joining me today. This was so much fun and it's really got me wanting to paint more
butterflies. So let me know down in the comments if you'd like to see a swallowtail butterfly next
or your favorite butterfly. Thanks everybody. Take care and happy painting. I'll see you all
soon in another video. Bye.