How to draw a butterfly

Watch the process of drawing a realistic butterfly in this how-to video.

Step 1 - Basic Contour Lines
To start, get yourself a photograph to draw from. If you squint while looking at the picture some of the basic shapes should start to emerge. With the picture I used, I was able to see the following shapes of the butterfly, a branch and 3 separate leaves coming off of the branch.

Find the simple shapes in your photo and draw them lightly on the page. At this stage we are not going for perfection at all. You should only be concerned with quickly getting the drawing started. These contour lines shouldn't take you much more than a minute or two to draw. If you're taking longer than that, you're probably trying to make things overly complex.

Step 2 - Adding in more details
The way that I approach this butterfly drawing is no different than how I approach most of my art. I try and work from general details to specific details.

What is a general detail? That's what we created in step one. Specific details are smaller details like the ones that you can see in the step two image.

What I'm doing in this step is creating a 'blue-print' that I will later use when I am shading in the black and white drawing of a butterfly. Continue to add details to the other objects in your picture as you see fit.

Step 3 - Shading
Try working in layers when you are shading. Start with a light layer by pressing very lightly on the page. Gradually increase the pressure of your pencil as you add more and more layers of shading. The harder you press, the darker the shading.

Step 4 - More Shading & Clean-up
Use your eraser to clean up any unwanted lines around the edges of your drawing. You can also use your eraser to remove the darkness from parts that may have too much shading on them.

Check out this video drawing lesson and learn how to sketch a butterfly.