Stars and stripes butterfly tutorial

The easiest way to create holiday designs is by taking your most popular designs and adapting them through split cakes and stencils. The 4th of July is no exception to this rule, so today I've created a butterfly adaptation for the 4th, which is quickly approaching. If you have a patriotic split cake, this design will be much easier to complete quickly, and will hardly take any more time than your normal butterfly would at event. 

Materials

Patriotic split cake 
Butterfly sponge (Always Wicked)
White face paint (Paradise)
White or light blue pearl face paint (TAG)
#4 round brush
BAM2016 tiny stars stencil
BAM1039 star stencil
Dauber or sponge
Silver liquid bling
Cosmetic grade white translucent glitter

Tutorial

Load your butterfly sponge from the patriotic split cake, keeping the blue to the center of the eye and the red to the outside. Sponge a butterfly shape on the face, making sure to keep the lower wings smaller. For this design, I felt the blue was a little dark and intense for the inner eye, so I reloaded a sponge and lightened the inner corner with a combination of pearl white and light pearl blue.

Load your sponge or dauber with white and sponge one large star in the center of the forehead. Use the small stars BAM stencil to create stars on the wings of the butterfly. Make sure your sponge is well-loaded but somewhat dry before trying to sponge or the white will bleed under the edge and keep your stars from being crisp. Add some white iridescent glitter over the wings.

 

Using your #4 round brush and white, first add outlines and teardrops to the top wings, carefully mirroring them so the left and right sides match, then repeating with the bottom wings. 

With the same #4 brush, add small teardrops over the star in the center to suggest fireworks. Add small dots and starbursts as well.

Outline the center star and the wings with silver liquid bling to finish your patriotic stars and stripes butterfly. 

Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in Elgin, Illinois, and her artwork has appeared in The Colored Palette and SkinMarkz magazines. She services Elgin, Illinois, the NW Chicago suburbs, and northern Chicago, as well as the eastern suburbs of Rockford. Stop by Facepaint.com to check out her other face painting blog posts and tutorials.

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