Scavenger Chic

DIY – Hand Painted Butterflies on Reclaimed Doors

• By Joan
• January 17, 2024
• 3 Comments

Hand Painted Butterflies on Reclaimed Doors

With four inches of fresh snow on the ground, more snow expected tomorrow and temperatures in the 20’s, I’m doing what everyone should be doing… I’m hibernating and passing the time away by painting butterflies. 

It does sound like a weird combination now that I’m saying it out loud but hand painted butterflies are so beautiful and their colors just scream happiness. No more dreary winter days.

I’m using reclaimed doors as the canvas for my butterflies.  These 2 panel doors are the perfect  backdrop for 2 pieces of artwork.

If you don’t have a door handy, feel free to use plywood, shiplap, even a real canvas. Whatever you have on hand.

Cut the door  into your 2 canvasses. For the butterflies, I’m using the smaller squarer pieces.

If you have any holes from where the doorknob or locks were set, they will have to be patched but most of those were in the larger rectangular area of the doors.

Use an all purpose primer to  prepare your door for painting.

The beauty of using this type of door is it comes with a built in frame.  I’m using my stash of black chalk paint to paint the frame but feel free to use whatever you have on hand.  The black doesn’t have to be super neat because I’m going to cut in with the background color in the next step.

The background is painted with celery chalk paint, a  nice neutral background nature color.

Search the internet to find your favorite butterfly picture.  I found the best pictures on Etsy where many sellers are offering real butterfly specimens for sale such as this guy.

Enlarge your butterfly picture  to the size of your door (or canvas) and print out.    I personally use Microsoft Publisher but a free option would be Block Poster.

Trim  and cut out your butterfly print  and tape back together.

Trace around your butterfly onto the door creating an outline.

To the background, I splattered some watered down acrylic orange, pink and yellow and smeared the dots with my finger where the color was too concentrated.

If you would like the name of your butterfly on your finished project (these are the scientific names)  hand letter the name now.  Use pencil until you get the name centered and drawn the way you’d like.

Add just a drop of black to the background color and you have the perfect shade for a shadow underneath the butterfly and your lettering. If the paint does not glide on smoothly, add just a drop or two of water to your mixture.

Finally time to start painting your butterfly.  Just start with the background color.  If you see another color in the background add it while the main color is still wet.  A few swipes of the brush and it’ll blend right in.  These are just simple acrylic paints, the kind you find in your local craft store in hundreds of colors.

This blue morpho butterfly had a few more colors added to the background.  Just keep a picture of the butterfly you’re trying to paint handy.

One more butterfly with just the background colors.

On the cutout version of your butterfly, coat the back either with pencil or in my case charcoal.  We’re about to transfer all those itty bitty lines.

Make sure all of the butterfly background colors have dried when you lay your cutout butterfly over top of your painted butterfly.  Tape in place and use a pen to trace over all the lines you would like on your finished butterfly.

When you remove the cutout, you should be left with lines depicting all the veins and dots from the original butterfly.

This is the time to use all your paint by number skills.  Follow the lines you created in the previous step until your butterfly is complete.

This butterfly, the Idea Leucone is actually a  good butterfly to start with if you don’t trust your paint mixing skills on the background.  Just paint the entire background white, all the detail will come with the  veining.  You may be able to use a paint pen though I haven’t tried that myself.

I had a bunch of plaster lath strips I used to frame out the painted door butterflies. Cut to size, sand well and nail directly to the door edge.

If you would like a less chalky, flat finish, add a coat of clear wax to the frame and painting.

These are the finished painted butterflies….

These colorful butterflies make such a big impact in a room.

You can find the DIY for the coffee table here and the lamps here.

I think I have a problem…now I want more doors to paint more butterflies.  They are kind of addicting 😉  Before I do, I have to do something with the other half of all those doors.

Until next time, stay inspired.

Related posts:

Easy Thrift Store Makeovers with White Chalk Paint DIY Backgammon Board with a Recycled Door DIY Bookshelf Headboard from Reclaimed Doors Thrift Store Lazy Susan