How to Draw a Monarch Butterfly Step by Step

This tutorial shows how to draw a monarch butterfly step by step with illustrated examples and simple instructions.

The focus of the guide is on creating a simplified but still a fairly realistic drawing of a monarch butterfly. Most of the steps are dedicated to explaining how to build up the line drawing with the final step showing how to apply color.

You can see a preview of the drawing stages in the image above but additional examples are provided throughout the tutorial.

It’s recommended that you start the butterfly drawing in pencil. Although, the examples are put together in a way where they don’t necessarily require erasing, due to the overall complexity of the tutorial, you will likely need to make some adjustment as you draw. For this reason, try and keep your lines fairly light. The lines in the examples have been made dark just so that they are easier to see.

Step 1 – Draw the Butterfly’s Body

First, make a straight vertical line to act as a guide for drawing the butterfly’s body. Towards the upper part of this line define it’s upper part and add head on top. Make the body shaped like an oval with a slightly flattened upper end (where the head is attached). On top of this add the head with larger lower part and the smaller upper section. Be sure to leave plenty of room on your drawing area for the antennae above (added in a later step).

Draw the lower part of the body in two sections as shown above. Make the top section thicker and the lower section thinner.

You can erase the guide line after you have the butterfly’s body outlined.

Step 2 – Draw the Wings

Draw the butterfly’s wings starting with the top pair. Afterwards, add the bottom pair.

Make the top pair of wings somewhat similar in shape to a triangles with curved sides and rounded corners. Draw the visible parts of the bottom wings to have rounded shapes. Try make the wings on both sides mirror one another so that the drawing is symmetrical.

Step 3 – Draw the Antennae

Going up from the top of the head draw the antennae (angled in different directions). Define them with curved lines and give them thicker water drop shaped ends.

Step 4 – Draw the Body Hairs

Monarch butterflies generally have hairs around the mid sections of their body. You can simply create a hint of these as shown in the example above. Draw the hairs as two sets of clumps with a large splits down their middle and smaller splits on their ends.

Step 5 – Draw the Stripes at the Bottom of the Body

Draw some stripes that monarch butterflies have along the bottom end of the bodies. Add four of these in total as shown in the example. Make the outlines of the stripes thicker on the side and thinner towards the middle of the body.

Step 6 – Draw the Wing Patterns

For this important step draw the various markings on the butterflies wings. As these have fairly irregular shapes they are a bit hard to describe. You can simply refer to the above example for their shapes. Generally, there will be smaller swatches along the outer ends of the top wing with fairly large swatches along their inner/middle sections as well as along the bottom wings. Draw the larger parts of these patterns first.

Step 7 – Draw the Wing Spots

After you have the main patterns along the wings outlined, add some of the smaller spots that monarch butterflies tend to have along the outer lower edges of their wings (both top and bottom pairs). Again, you can see the provided example for their shapes and distribution, generally, these will consist of two rows. The spots don’t need to be perfectly symmetrical but try and keep them fairly even on both sides.

Step 8 – Draw the Head & Body Spots

Finally, draw the spots along the head and the upper part of the body. For the body draw a pair of spots per side with a larger one lower down and a smaller one higher up near the head. On the head itself first, draw tree spots that form a triangular shape. Position one higher up and two lower down. Next, add the last pair of spots along the lower edges of the it’s outline.

With this last stet of details added, you should have a outline drawing of a monarch butterfly.

Step 9 – Color the Butterfly

To finish the drawing apply some color. All you need to color a monarch butterfly is black, orange and yellow.

First, apply the black to the head, upper and lower parts f the body and the outer and vein-like areas of the wings. Don’t darken the bottom of the body’s upper oval like section.

After applying the black apply and orange to yellow gradient (top to bottom) to the wing pattern. Leave the smaller swatch near the outer ends of the wings white. Keep the little spots along their lower edges white as well. Color the mid section of the body a lighter to darker orange gradient to show that light is coming from one side of the butterfly (giving it a more three dimensional appearance). Also, add a darker strip of this gradient along the upper oval section of the body to show a reflection in that area.

Conclusion

This guide show how to draw a monarch butterfly. The tutorial goes from gradually building up the line drawing to coloring. The end goal is to create artwork that is somewhat simplified but still looks quite realistic.

For more guides done in a similar art style, be sure to also try the following: