Paint a Watercolor Butterfly With a Black Resist Outline

Today we’re going to paint a Watercolor Butterfly
with a black resist outline.
Black resist can be done with oil pastel, crayon or black glue.
We’ll show you how.

So this weekend the g’little girls want to come for Saturday sleepover.

Grampa bought a game to play with them.

Kim is planning something, I’m not sure what it is yet.

That means I need to get on the bandwagon so I get some time with them, too.

I’ve been filling my wagon with painting ideas.

Watercolor painting.

It seems as if watercolor would be the safest kind of painting to do with children as far as ruining clothes and splashing furniture and floors. Almost as safe as this apron project.

So here’s what I’m planning…

Inspiration photo. Blue Morpho Butterfly via australianbutterflies.com

Saturday Sleepover Craft:
Painting a Watercolor Butterfly with DIY Black Resist Outline

My super charged girls will have to learn a little patience with this painting technique,

because it has to be done in two steps with time for drying in-between.

That means I’ll have to prep them mentally so they get used to the idea of taking time.

Sigh. That’s a hard one.

What shall we give them for dinner to slow them down enough for us to keep up???

Anyway, here’s

What We Need:

• A nice thick printer paper so the water doesn’t dissolve it. I’d do watercolor paper, but have you seen the price of even school grade watercolor paper lately? So, since this is an experiment we’ll stick with 24# printer paper.
• Butterfly outline to print or trace onto the paper.
• Watercolor paints and brushes. School grade is fine. Water jar, paper towel.
• Black resist. You can choose between black oil pastel or black crayon. Pastel works fine, but crayon takes a few coats to get a nice build up. My choice for this time is black glue. (Will I be sorry?)

How to Make Black Glue for Resist Painting:

• Elmer’s School Glue or Alene’s Tacky Glue
• Black craft paint

Don’t do this step with littles. For one thing, it’s hard to get it mixed properly. And you know the other thing. Mess.

You can do this instead: Start with a glue bottle that’s partially used, or a lot used, and add black paint to the bottle. Go for about 3/4 glue and 1/4 black paint. Let it sit awhile, then flip it over and let it sit overnight.

The next day you can let the littles finish shaking it to mix it well.

Apply the black glue resist to your butterfly design:

• Explain resist painting to your littles. You are applying the glue to the paper on the outline of the butterfly so that when it is dry the glue will create a resistant barrier to the watercolor paint. It will keep the paint colors from flowing into each other and making a smash up of color. The “resist” can be done many ways. Sometimes you want a flat white resist, like this project, so that only the outline of a design is left after applying a smash up of paint colors. Our butterfly will have a raised resist, which will make it look a little bit like stained glass.
• Apply a trail of glue on the outlines of the butterfly. It’s easiest to get a straight line if the bottle tip doesn’t touch the paper, and if you keep your eyes on the line slightly ahead of where your hand is applying the glue. Practice on scrap paper first, or make 10 butterfly prints! But don’t expect the impossible. Little hands won’t get it perfect and that’s fine. Experiment with the size of the tip opening to get a good glue flow, but not too much. In my attempt above the glue flowed too fast and thick. A thinner flow results in better control and a cleaner outline.
• Now is the time for Grampa to play the game with them. The glue needs to dry completely before painting with watercolors. Lay the papers away on a flat surface, preferably overnight.

Paint the watercolor butterfly.

This is the fun part.

Get out the paints and water jars, the brushes and paper towel.

Show them how to get a nice puddle of paint, and how to brush it on.

Not too wet, so the paper doesn’t buckle horribly. Start thin, and build coats to the depth of color you want.

Encourage them to paint a different color in every “pane” but remind them a butterfly is symmetrical. What they paint on one side should be the same on the other half.