Painting Butterflies on the Wall

 

We recently made Painted and Jeweled Butterflies with wooden cutouts. They sparked E’s interest in butterflies, and a few days later, she wanted to paint butterflies on paper.

She asked me to draw an outline for her, and I did. We did this activity on a larger scale and decided to hang the paper on the wall, going back to one of our favorite simple art activities.

 

(E was 4 years and 5 months old.)

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Materials for Painting Butterflies on the Wall

• Paper. {I’ve kept some of the Kraft paper Amazon puts in their boxes and used a few sheets for this activity.}
• Paint. {We used acrylic paint for the pretty colors but any type of paint will work.}
• Paintbrush(es).
• Paper plate or similar for the paint.
• Sticky tape.
• Pen, marker or pencil for the outline (optional).

 

I helped E stick the paper to the wall with sticky tape and drew very basic outlines for four butterflies with a pen.

 

 

Finally, I set up a chair with paper towels, paper plates, paint and paintbrushes for her to keep Baby N away from the paint.

 

 

And E was off! She took her time choosing colors and enjoyed painting her butterflies.

 

 

For the second butterfly, she decided to start with the club of the antennae, after leaving them blank on the first one {she later went back and painted them, too}.

 

 

She was kneeling to paint the two butterflies at the bottom of the paper.

 

 

After a while, she started mixing the colors a little for a bit more variety.

 

 

 

Here, she put one hand each on the butterflies at the top, trying to decide which one to paint next 🙂

 

 

She picked the one on the right.

 

 

That was it for her, though – she ended up skipping the last butterfly and said she wanted to save it for another time. Fair enough!

 

 

Does your child enjoy painting butterflies? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

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