Recycled Material Butterfly

Art can be created from all sorts of materials. It’s been my job during this distance learning time to find ways to adapt and retool or completely reimagine lessons based on materials that families may or may not have at home. You’ll be seeing a lot of recycled materials in the coming weeks because I, like most I’m assuming, are drowning in recyclables and CARDBOARD. SO. MUCH. CARDBOARD. So in this lesson I’m using up newspaper, paper scraps, and cardboard. Use what you’ve got on hand- it’ll all do the same job in the end! In a normal setting we would spend two full hours and some change on this project.

Materials:
+ Newspaper
+ Tissue Paper or scrap paper
+ Cardboard
+ Scissors
+ Paint
+ Markers
+ Pencil
+ Scissors
+ Glue

First things first: you’ve got to choose your color palette and paint papers. I spent about two hours tearing newspaper (keeping the majority of them long) and painting. If this was in a classroom setting I would spend almost the entirety of one class having each table paint a monochromatic set of colors on a bunch of papers. That way four tables, with four sets of colors, would create enough paper for our project in about thirty minutes. We would all share in that goodness when it came time to create our butterfly.

Once you’ve got a stack of papers it’s time to create the wings. If you have a large sheet of newspaper, lay it out on your work surface. If you don’t have newspaper, tape some paper together to create a large sheet. Keeping the fold line in the middle, begin tearing your painted paper into thinner strips and gluing them symmetrically onto the larger piece of newspaper. I do this so that the paper has a little extra weight to it.

I arrange the painted paper in a way that reminds me of the finished shape of the wings. We’ll be cutting in the next step so I actually glued the entire piece of paper down in case I had to cut through it. Allow this to dry for about ten minutes before trying to handle it.

Now fold that larger piece of newspaper back in half, with the painted paper facing out. I cut close to the edges to create smooth edges of the butterfly wings. Remember to cut a little- you can always cut more away but you can not add large pieces back (without a lot of hassle).

On a piece of scrap cardboard I drew the head, thorax, and abdomen of our butterfly. Make sure this is going to be long enough or big enough to fit in the middle of your paper wings. I painted the body and then gave it some patterns and details. You can draw or paint these details.

While the body is drying I used up painted paper scraps to create the details on the butterfly wings. For some details I cut the paper and for others I cut them out. You can see some of the grey newspaper peeking through the wings, but no biggie! I like when it looks imperfect- it definitely makes it more interesting to look at!

To finish her up I colored some newspaper, cut them into thin strips for the antennae, and attached them underneath the body. I keep looking at my finished butterfly and thinking that it’s incomplete. Maybe I’ll use a sharpie or some markers to draw in some patterns as well. Giving myself a rest and coming back to it on a new day should help me decide what it’s missing. Happy making!