Cocoon for IF and a few butterflies

Last year I did a couple of butterfly paintings that were inspired by my trip to a butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, and my new friend (a Paper Kite butterfly), as seen here:

Paper Kite Butterfly

I’ve seen butterflies and I’ve even been to a butterfly exhibit before, but this time was different. They released new butterflies into the exhibit while we were there. Butterflies were fluttering all around us! This little one flew right to my hand, crawled on top of my phone (which made it hard to take pictures – Paul took the one above), and stayed with me until we were ready to leave, when they coaxed her onto a leaf.

Here’s the first painting I did, obviously inspired by the Paper Kite Butterfly:

Heart Butterfly

We saw so many cool butterflies, but none of them were exactly like the next group I painted (which were inspired by the butterflies at the exhibit, and a tattoo I saw on a girl sitting across from me on the subway):

Butterfly Swirls

When I saw that the prompt for Illustration Friday this week is “cocoon,” I started to wonder what the cocoons of my painted butterflies would look like. Here’s what I came up with:

Cocoons for my painted butterflies.

Sometimes it’s fun to give new life to old ideas!