How To Make A Butterfly Birthday Card With Colored Pencil Drawings

In the days of my youth I came to believe there was nothing more quixotic than a butterfly fluttering her wings around the petals of a sunflower in our small garden atop the San Bernardino Mountains.  You can make a butterfly birthday card for people who love these colorful insects. Butterflies are easy to draw, and people of all ages can draw pictures of butterflies. When I was in first grade I remember when we had to make a giant butterfly, and color it with oil pastels.  There is just something beautiful about about butterflies helping to pollinate flowers as they search for nectar in the flowers of our gardens, and of our beautiful countryside landscapes.  Every day I dream of birds, which I see on my walks, but from time to time I have to be reminded of the existence and purpose of butterflies as well.  The decreasing population of butterflies worldwide saddens me, and I am concerned because children who live in urbanized regions may not have had the

First, I made a card by folding a sheet of paper in-half, and then into one-fourth to make the quarter fold card.  I made this quarter fold card out of computer paper, which shows you can really make cards out of any kind of paper you have on hand.

Take as much time as you would like sketching the image of the butterfly on the front of the card. For this project I decided to do a quick sketch so I could send out the birthday card on time.  Nevertheless, I was quite happy with how the butterfly card turned out.

Select the color you would like to use for coloring the wings of your butterfly.  Certain types of butterflies will have multiple colors, but for simplicity you can always make the wings one primary color.  Use your reference photograph to determine what colors you should used when shading in the wings of the butterfly.  However, you can also use artistic license to make the color of the butterfly wings any shade you desire.  For instance, I have decided to color the wings of my butterfly's wings purple because this is one of the favorite colors of the person I am giving the birthday card to.  When designing a card for someone, I like to keep in mind their interests and personal tastes.

When I decided to color in the midsection of the butterfly: the spiracles, antennae, abdomen, thorax, head, and eyes, I decided to use a black colored pencil.  You can draw and color in the midsection with as much detail as desired, but I decided to keep this a bit more simplistic on my butterfly since you really cannot see many of these details with out a microscope anyway.

I decided to color in the leaf directly behind the butterfly using a combination of light green and dark green colored pencil tones to achieve the look of the real leaf.  Of course I used artistic license to place my leaf behind the butterfly, but this is only because I love the look of a very large leaf behind a butterfly.  Growing up in the San Bernardino Mountains I often saw many butterflies perching on large leaves during my hours spent reading in a garden.  Pure delight!

When I get to the portion of a sketch where I begin to color the sky, I always feel a surge of the climax and the fruition of an art project.  There is just something so fulfilling about reaching the final part of a sketch, whether it be detailed of complicated.

Now that I finished coloring in the butterfly illustration for the card, I am ready to use my calligraphy pen to trace over the cursive "Happy Birthday" message.

I used an old fashion calligraphy pen to trace over the "Happy Birthday" message on the front of the card.  Perhaps in the future I will write in a calligraphy script while using the pen, but I decided to just use cursive for this card.  Honestly I love creating my own birthday cards, and I feel very accomplished after doing so.  You can make your own birthday cards by simply folding a sheet of paper into a quarter-fold card, and drawing a beautiful image on the front.  So I created a beautiful birthday gift for my friend without having to spend money on something they might not use.  A handmade card is so much more thoughtful!