Now more than ever – I think it’s so very important to realize the butterfly effect of Kindness. This project is inspired by Damien Hirst, and an Art in Action project we did in June, 2016 . Damien Hirst was born June 7, 1965, and is a British artist, entrepreneur, and art collector.
“Great art – or good art – is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. – Damien Hirst
For this project, we will use a scraping technique to create colourful background and chalk pastels to colour in the butterfly wings.
Materials Needed:
- watercolour paper & masking tape
- pencil
- For scraping: acrylic paints – lime green, bright yellow, turquoise & and old gift card
- butterfly template – using copy paper, or bristol board, draw one side of a butterfly – so that it fills about 75-80% of your page. Add the body and a tiny bit of the other side of the wings, & cut out with scissors.
- Chalk pastels – magenta & blue and any other colour you like
- acrylic black and copper paint for outlining the butterfly at the end – but you can use any colour you like for this as well.
- print out of the words “kindness Changes everything” I used Georgia font on italic and # 30 – but you can write the message on yourself or use your favourite font to print off any message
- gluestick
After you have taped down the edges of your watercolour paper, begin by putting a dollop of lime green, yellow and turquoise on the masking tape at the top of your page. Holding the gift card firmly in your hand, scrape the paint down the page until everything is covered. Once you’ve covered the page… stop! The paint will dry remarkably fast as you’ve only put on a very thin layer of paint.
Using your butterfly template, trace around with a pencil. Then, using the chalk pastels on their side, colour in your butterfly how you like… If you mix magenta and blue, you get a beautiful shade of purple. You can experiment with different colours as well. Once the butterfly is coloured in, you can add vertical dashes with the different colours of chalk pastel to the background
Using a small detail brush and black acrylic paint, paint in the body of the butterfly, the antennae and around the wings. If you turn your paintbrush upside down, you can use the hard end of the brush to make perfect little circles and make a pattern with the dots.
Then, using another colour – I used copper, but you can use any colour you like or leave it black – I painted a broken line around the butterfly wings and some horizontal lines inside the body.
Next, rip the edges of the message “Kindness changes everything.” First, fold the paper on either side so there is a crease and then carefully rip the paper along the crease. You can use scissors if you prefer a straighter edge. Then using the glue stick carefully glue on message.
For the finale, you can use yellow chalk pastel to colour in the copy paper with the words printed on it and blend using your finger or bit of tissue. Once it finished, carefully take off the tape and hang up for everyone to see!
Hopefully, your butterfly effect will become apparent and you can see how kindness really does, change everything!
I hope you do make a butterfly! If you do send us a picture at artinactiontoronto@gmail.com. Follow along on our sparking creativity every day in May on Facebook and Instagram.