Butterflies

The two butterfly images featured on today’s cards are part of a digital set called ‘butterflies‘ from Echidna Studios. If you look closely at the butterfly above you can see a hint of shimmer in that centre blue section. Most of the paint is actually shimmery in real life I just couldn’t capture it on camera.

To get the shimmery look on the wings I painted with traditional watercolours first then painted over the top with finetec pearlescent watercolours.

The stamp above has a line on it which suggests an edge to ground the butterfly; it’s clearly not in flight. I painted the area under the line with a pale grey paint then added water to spread and dilute the colour. You can see I added water to a dryer area; that’s why I got the cauliflower effect. I could have smoothed out the whole area but I occasionally like those kind of watermarks; they add interest. I completed the card with a teeny sentiment which balances the black outlines of the printed butterfly.

The second butterfly is in flight so I have nothing in the scene other than background colour. I printed the digital image with the laser printer on hot pressed watercolour paper then, before painting the butterfly I picked up some smooshed and diluted ink from my glass mat.

I feel like I have described my smoosh, spritz and swipe method many times but if you haven’t heard me mention it before here’s how it goes. I smoosh(press down) a distress ink pad on my glass mat to leave ink. In this case I used tumbled glass, scattered straw and weathered wood. I spritz the ink so it spreads and sometimes blends then I swipe my panel of watercolour paper through the ink. You never know what you’ll get. Sometimes I re-swipe to pick up a bit more ink.

After the abstract background was dry I used Sennelier watercolours to paint the butterfly. Painting a butterfly is trickier than I thought. In my mind the wings are full of blended colour but actually they are full of intricate patterns that don’t blend together. All that to say this is definitely not a botanically correct painting!

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