Hello again! It's Nabaa from @whimsical.doodles over on Instagram. For today's post, I picked "butterfly" as the focus keyword. I thought it would be fun to try out something new. I know a lot of people love butterflies and find them beautiful to look at. I, on the other hand, find them pretty scary 😂. But this turned patterned butterfly turned out to be pretty fun to work on! It's also pretty easy to recreate so read on to learn how.

Here's what I used to create this cover page:

• Archer and Olive Dot Grid A5 Notebook
• Posca Pens
• Sakura Gelly Roll - White
• Pencil and Eraser

Tutorial:

Draw out a large butterfly using a pencil - making sure to carefully center it on your page. I wanted to create a sort of "mirrored" pattern here so I traced out my butterfly. If freehand drawing isn't for you, tracing can be a fun way to get near drawings in your journal.

Go over your pencil drawing with an eraser very lightly - leaving behind very light pencil marks. Now start coloring it in! Once again, I used my posca pens to colour. If you've been following me on Instagram or reading my posts here, you'll notice I tend to use these pens a LOT. They're super easy to work with and give you easy control over what is essentially "paint" in pen form. 

You can, of course, you anything else you want to color in - Crayola markers, gouache paint, acrylics, etc. I just find the Poscas so much easier to control and there's no clean up required the way you would need to with paints. Plus the paper in the Archer and Olive books is so well suited to the Poscas!

I carefully outlined and colored in the bottom wings of my butterfly drawing with a navy blue color. I used the pastel orange for the top wings. I used the khaki green color for the middle body of the butterfly. Feel free to experiment with different colour schemes!

Once you have your base colors down, start adding in little details! I used the white gelly roll pen for most of the little details on the blue wings. 

To do this, first lightly go over using a pencil. You can fix any errors using an eraser if you have to. I drew in some leaves on the bottom wings and added a pastel red color to the tips of the wings. 

Do the same on the top wings - I first drew on a flower design using a pencil on both wings. Then added in a few more details on the edges.

Fill in the design using the pastel red. I then went over the white gelly roll to outline the pattern and fill in the flower. I went over the leaves using the same khaki green we used for the body. I also added in little moons and stars on all wings:

And you're done! To complete the final cover page, I stuck a little strip of kraft paper with month on it!

If you'd like to see specific themes or have more ideas for me to work with, please leave a comment down below or head over to Instagram @whimsical.doodles to follow for more inspiration!