We stock three canvases with butterflies on them. Not thirty, and not a whole butterfly collection. Three. Here is what is on each one, and which of the three is worth your evening.
Butterflies And Pansies
The most butterfly of the three: several of them over a bed of pansies, wings open, in violet and orange. Dozens of small numbered regions sit inside each wing, which is the kind of canvas that looks intimidating in the photo and then goes quickly, because every one of those regions is a single flat colour. Take the 48 colour version. At 36 the wing gradients collapse into two tones and the whole effect is lost.
Butterfly Sunflower
One butterfly, one sunflower, a lot of open background. Far less work than it looks, and the easiest of the three for someone who has never held a brush. Buying for a child, or for a first time painter, buy this one.
Sunflower and Monarch
A monarch, so the palette is orange and black with white spotting along the wing edge. Those spots are the smallest regions on any of our floral canvases. Use the thinnest of the three included brushes and paint them last, over dry black, rather than trying to paint around them.
Why a butterfly is a good first canvas
Symmetry. Whatever you do to the left wing you repeat on the right, so you get two attempts at every shape and the second is always better than the first. Compare that with a portrait, where every region is unique and a mistake has nowhere to hide.
Scale helps too. These canvases put the detail in the centre and keep the edges simple, so the hours go where the result shows.
Which size
For all three, 16x20 inches at $24.95 is the right call. The 12x12 at $19.95 shrinks the wing regions below the width of the fine brush, and that turns a quiet evening into a fight. If you want a square format, go up to the 23.5x23.5 jumbo at $46.95 rather than down to the small square.
If butterflies are not really the point
Sometimes what people want is bright wildlife rather than this species in particular. Animals and Wildlife holds the zebras, parrots and foxes in the same high saturation range. And a butterfly you photographed yourself can be turned into a numbered canvas through the custom kit page, which is the only route to a species we do not carry.
Each kit arrives with the printed canvas, the numbered acrylic pots, three brushes and a reference print. Printing takes one to three business days, delivery seven to fifteen. Shipping is free to the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia and New Zealand, with no order minimum. Thirty days to send it back for a full refund if the canvas is not what you expected.
