Butterfly Inspired Art

We decided to use the abundance of white butterflies in the garden as inspiration for art.

These beautiful butterflies are everywhere at the moment, not sure if it is good for my vegetable garden but they are pretty.

We looked at them in detail to talk about the patterns and colours of the wings by googling the Cabbage White Butterfly.

You need:

butterflies to look at
green and white paint
blue paper
paintbrush
black pen

What to do:

Make corn using green paint. We tried using sticks to apply the paint but it was too slow a process for Daisy. A paintbrush applied the paint in a much more satisfying way.

We talked about how corn grows from the ground up. We imagined the roots were below the paper and we were painting the corn as we see it above the ground. This helped her to start at the bottom of the paper and paint up.

She struggled initially with the need to paint in a downwards motion but when using the words “growing from the bottom up” it all seemed easier. Yes; those were the first words that came to mind; growing from the “ground to the sky” might have been better, on reflection!

Next, we added the butterflies.

So here is where I had the usual dilemma. I have a tendency to have control issues. I am a grade 3-6 teacher and so am used to working with set outcomes or learning objectives. I find it hard to remember little kids need to freely explore. Daisy is a very headstrong girl and likes to do things her way; sounds familiar. She insisted on doing the butterflies her way. This is her finished exploration piece:

We then did another version of butterflies; with emphasis on showing the different corn plants in our garden and each of the butterflies’ wings. We talked about the symmetry of the wings.

I made sure she understood that I valued both pieces of work. When adding the antennae, Daisy pointed out she couldn’t find each butterfly in the exploration piece. On her second attempt, she added the black dots she had seen on the wings and tried to make each wing match.

Here is the finished Butterfly Inspired Art: