I love adding watercoloring to our lessons when possible, and this monarch butterfly watercolor is a great beginner project. With just a couple of colors, you can make an extraordinary painting.

For this lesson we are using our Tim Holtz Distress Inks as our watercolor medium for our Anatomy of a Monarch Butterfly. We used Wild Honey, Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick and Barn Door. I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut a butterfly shape, but you could easily free hand this one. We also used Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman as a science reference material when drawing and labeling our monarch butterfly. We did this lesson as part of our Butterfly and Caterpillars unit study. We also referred to Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies by Mel Boring for more information about monarch butterflies.We did this lesson as part of our Butterfly and Caterpillars unit study.

This lesson took about 30 minutes and can work for various grade levels.

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