Butterfly Drawings in Pencil

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The patterns, which look like a frame, are in fact the veins that nourish the butterfly’s wings. Did you know that recent studies find that hind wings help make butterflies (and moths) quick turns during the flight to escape or evade predators? It is fantastic how Mother Nature takes detailed care of these beautiful colored creatures.

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I cannot help but repeat this almost on every page, that you are a human, not a camera. Be easy about it. You can never make a drawing perfect ;-) The easiest way is to draw one with opened wings, so that you can clearly see the size, the pattern and it is easy to copy.

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Click on the images and they will enlarge in a new tab or window. Print it out and simply copy it. If you cannot copy it, then get yourself a tracing paper and simply trace it on the tracing paper.

Outline first the basic shape of the wings, the outer line, and the “mosaic” on the wings. That will give you a basic idea of where you will follow up with detailed pencil work.

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I started from the upper half on the left fore-wing. Click on the image so that you can see better in detail how I shade each part on the wings.

You will easily notice that even on these simple butterfly pencil drawings, I used only three shade tones. Basically, that is sufficient to complete a simple drawing.

When you have ready the left half of the butterfly drawing, I would recommend you fold the paper in the middle of the butterfly body – along the body and flip the ready wing on the opposite side.