Maria van Oosterwyck loved to paint tulips and butterflies—tulips for spring and butterflies for Christ’s resurrection! So let’s make an Easter card masterpiece with tulips and 3-D butterflies in a Delft pot!
But before you begin your masterpiece, follow this link to my website, where you can sign up for my brand new newsletter and receive a free booklet to help you Make Museum Visits a Masterpiece for Your Family! http://www.kathy-oneill.com/
Now Let’s get started.
You’ll need these supplies:
- White construction paper
- Cardstock in various colors
- Watercolor paper if you have it, if not, cheap white paper plates will work
- Scrap paper for patterns
- Crayons and markers
- Glue stick or white glue
- Scissors, ruler, pencil
- Watercolor set and brushes
- Wax paper or plastic cloth to protect surfaces from paint and glue
Directions: because there are several steps to making this project, I’ve divided the steps into 7 short sections (A-G) for clarity.
A. To make beautifully-colored paper for the tulips and butterflies, follow these steps:
- Make puddles of several colors of paint and water. Use enough water so paint will flow and enough pigment so colors will be bright on the paper.
- Using a flat brush, wet your watercolor paper or paper plates with clear water. Don’t saturate them, but be sure the surface has a good sheen of water.
- With brushes or even a spoon, add paint from the puddles to your paper or plate and allow these to swirl together and mix. It’s fun to swirl the paint on the paper or plates, but stop before your colors mix too much.
- Let dry.
- Repeat steps 1-3 on the backside of the paper or plate.
- Set these water-colored papers aside to dry.
B. To make patterns for butterflies, tulips, and the pot, follow these steps:
- Cut and fold scrap paper squares of the appropriate size in half.
- Draw half of each object, then cut with the square folded. This gives you symmetrical objects (see photos).
- If you’re making a card, the pot needs to have a fairly long, straight side for the fold.
C. To make the card, follow these steps:
- Fold in half the colored cardstock you’ll use for the card.
- Place your unfolded pattern up against the fold line of the colored cardstock and cut out the pot-shaped card, cutting through both layers of cardstock.
- Now cut the pot pattern piece a little smaller all around and use this smaller pattern to cut out a front for the pot from the white construction paper.
- Cut another piece of white construction paper for the inside message, in whatever shape you’d like
D. To make the green stems and leaves, follow these steps:
- Cardstock is really best for this, and you may need to glue 2 stem pieces together to provide a stiff enough stem for the tulips.
- Draw or make patterns or cut freehand several stems and leaves (see photos for shapes)
E. To make the Delft designs on the pot, follow these steps:
- Use a pencil to lightly draw whatever designs you’d like on the white paper pot (repeat some of these on the inside paper, see photo)
- If you remember from the previous post, Delft designs are blue on a white background.
- Depending on the age of your children these designs can be simple or more detailed. I’ve included both and also the easy way to make some of the more intricate designs.
(The red lines are what are added to complete the designs) - If using watercolor paints, go over the pencil lines with blue crayon so it’s easier to keep the paint inside the designs.
- Use much less water when mixing paint for this small painting, and do not wet the paper.
- Once the papers are dry add an Easter message to the inside paper.
F. To make the tulips and butterflies, follow these steps:
- Use your patterns to cut tulips and butterflies from the water-colored paper or flat portion of the paper plates.
- Cut double the number of tulips you want if you don’t want the stems to show.
- Use crayon or marker to color the body of the butterflies.
- I liked these watercolor butterflies,
but found they didn’t contrast enough with the pot, so… - In the end I used orange cardstock and black marker to make some stylized monarch butterflies (see the photo).
G. To assemble the card follow these steps:
- Have an adult use an x-acto knife to make a slit along the lip of the Delft “pot” paper (see photo).
- Insert your stems and leaves through the slit and arrange these in the way you’d like.
- Apply glue to each stem and leaf and stick to the back of the Delft “pot.”
- Now apply glue to the back of the Delft “pot” and attach this to the front of the pot-shaped card (the stems and leaves will now look as if they are coming from inside the pot).
- Glue the other white piece of paper on the inside of the card.
- Glue each pair of tulips pieces together with the top of a stem in between (see photo).
- Fold the butterflies so one wing can stick up.
- Apply glue to the butterfly’s body and the back of one wing and place these where you’d like them (I put one inside and one on the front).
- Let all the glue dry completely before closing the card.
Helpful Hints:
- You can also just cut away the top part of the Delft “pot’s” oval and then glue as explained above
- Score around the butterfly’s body to make the wings fold more easily
- When you close the card, make sure the inside butterfly’s unglued wing is folded up.
Clean up Hints:
Wax paper under objects as you apply glue protects surfaces and helps prevent things from sticking where they shouldn’t.
Variations:
- Skip the painting, and use colored paper for the tulips or have children color these with crayon or maker.
- Use markers or crayons for the blue Delft designs also.
- Instead of a card, make the project and attach to a colored background for a poster to hang.
Now that you’ve created your masterpiece, Molly and I hope you’ll follow this link to my website, where you can sign up for my brand new newsletter and receive a free booklet to help you Make Museum Visits a Masterpiece for Your Family! http://www.kathy-oneill.com/
Kathy, The Picture Lady 