This mindful watercolor butterfly exercise is already the fifth one in my animal series. In the jellyfish exercise from 2 weeks ago, we looked at layering with watercolor. Another technique that is really fun and relaxing is wet-on-wet. In this exercise, we will explore this technique.
Wet-on-wet is exactly as it sounds, you add wet paint when the paint on your paper is still wet. It’s so hypnotizing to see the new color bleed into the paint below. This way it creates a beautiful blend with the color that’s already on the paper.
Try to look at those little details when you’re painting and remember this mindful watercolor butterfly exercise is for you and no one else. Just enjoy this!
Have fun with this exercise! Please let me know if you liked this one.
You can find a small video of this exercise on my Instagram @thecreativecooldown
Supplies used:
Watercolor paper 300gr (Arches), watercolor (Winsor & Newton), paintbrushes (da Vinci), fineliner (Copic), white gel pen (Uni-Ball Signo), washi tape, light pad (Wafer 2).
Alternative supply suggestions:
Of course, this exercise is easiest with watercolor or watercolor pencils. You can even use your kids’ watercolor paints. They may not have as much pigment as the ones in the art stores, but it’s definitely something you can start with at the beginning.
If you only have regular paper, please be aware that your paper cannot hold that much water and will probably warp. Try taping it down to prevent it from warping too much.
A light pad is not necessary, you can just sketch the butterfly on your paper. Try to do this lightly with a pencil.
Instructions:
1. Sketch a butterfly. You can make this as detailed as you’d like. A long oval shape for the body and two semicircles on either side are the minimum you need for this exercise. First, I sketched the butterfly on another piece of paper and then put my watercolor paper on top of it on a light pad. I then went over it with a fineliner. You can do this even without a light pad. Before I had one, I put the paper with my sketch and the watercolor paper on top against a window and then went over it. Of course, you can also just make your sketch directly on watercolor paper and then trace it with a fineliner. I just don’t like using an eraser on this kind of paper and I need that quite a lot when I’m sketching.
2. Choose a color. Add a lot of water to it, to make it really light and transparent. Go over the complete outline of your butterfly with this color. It is supposed to be really watery. Concentrate on how your brush feels and how the paint flows across your paper.
3. Mix a bit more paint into your mixture to make it a bit darker. Then get your brush and use this on the edges of the wings, while your first layer is still wet. It will bleed beautifully into your first layer. This technique is called wet-on-wet. Continue to make your paint a little darker (maybe even add a bit of grey or black) and keep adding it to the edges using the wet-on-wet technique. Keep going until you’re satisfied with your edges.
4. Paint the body of your butterfly and add some details. I also added white details along the edges with a gel pen.
5. Add some finishing touches if necessary and you’re done with your mindful watercolor butterfly exercise!
If you liked this exercise, you might like my Mindful watercolor jellyfish exercise as well.
