How to Draw a Butterfly

Learn how to draw a butterfly to bring your love of butterflies into your own home.

How to Draw a Butterfly for Kids
This is a simple way to for kids of all ages to draw a butterfly.

Get a large piece of paper. Place your hands down on the paper with your thumbs covering each other. Your hands will be the wings of the butterfly and your "thumbs on top of each other" will be the butterfly's body. Have someone trace your hands on the paper or trace your hands yourself, one hand at a time.

You now have your butterfly shape.

Fill in the butterfly using colored pencils or crayons. Don't forget to put on the antennas!

How to Draw a Butterfly using Geometric Shapes
This more complex butterfly is a great way to start to understand the relationship between nature, art and geometrical shapes.  

A butterfly at a simple level is a body, two upper wings and two lower wings. The body could either be a thin rectangle or a thin triangle with the point facing towards the bottom of the page. The two upper wings could be fat triangles that overlap on the upper body. The two lower wings are ovals or circles that touch the upper triangle wings as well as the body.

You now have a basic "format" of a butterfly. Your job now is to soften the outlines of your butterfly to add more realistic curves. Then, you would use the colors of your choice to fill your butterfly in, either realistically or "fantastically" as you choose. If you want to draw butterflies with realistic colors and patterns, go to your favorite search engine and run "butterfly pictures." You will be able to access lovely images to copy.