Art Project #12; Color Mixing Butterflies

June 01, 2016

We wanted an art project to go along with our butterflies yesterday. I knew it had been awhile since we had worked on our 100 days of art challenge and I figured the boys would enjoy making something to remember our butterflies by.

I didn't have anything in mind and pulled up Pinterest. I looked up "Butterfly Crafts for Kids" and got so many responses. I turned the computer over to the boys and told them to pick something.

They all chose a the same craft! I never in a million years thought that would happen.

We decided to make symmetrical butterflies using paint and folded paper.

We took large sheets of paper and folded them in half then opened them back up so we had a nice long crease to work with.

We talked about color mixing and I reminded the boys to think about how colors combine when picking two or three colors to use. But I left all color choices up to them.

They poured paint in a v shape; overlapping colors until they decided they had enough.

We then folded the paper back over at the seam we had made and gently pushed the paint around in a small circular motion. This mixes the paint and forms the wings of our butterflies. Our paper was thin enough that we could see the shapes taking place.

The boys were able to decide when it was time to open it back up and see the colorful wings of their butterfly.

Some butterflies had less mixing and skinny wings

Others were big and colorful

And others mixed like crazy!

We had worked outside so we put some rocks down on the paper to prevent them from blowing away in the breeze and set them aside to dry. We just loved the color combinations we came up with!

We talked about the different ways we could handle the body of the butterfly; we could use blank paint, we could cut them out of black paper and paste them on, or we could draw them on with black marker.

All three of my boys chose to use black marker and we waited until the paint was completely dry before tackling it. All three approached the drawing of their butterfly body differently.