How to Draw a Brimstone

In this quick tutorial you'll learn how to draw a Brimstone in 7 easy steps - great for kids and novice artists.

The images above represent how your finished drawing is going to look and the steps involved.

Below are the individual steps - you can click on each one for a High Resolution printable PDF version.

At the bottom you can read some interesting facts about the Brimstone.

Make sure you also check out any of the hundreds of drawing tutorials grouped by category.

How to Draw a Brimstone - Step-by-Step Tutorial

Step 1: To create your Brimstone you will want to begin by drawing the thorax and the abdomen. To draw this start with a bumpy oval and have the two ends come down to a point.

Step 2: Next draw the eyes and the antennae. Two draw the eyes, drawn two dots in the top of the body. Create the antennae using curved thick lines going upward from the body.

Step 3: Now you will need to draw the left wing. To draw the wing, start with an angled line coming out of the body that connects to two connected curved lines for the side and another at the bottom.

Step 4: Next draw the right wing the same way you drew the left, on the other side of the body.

Step 5: The next step is to drawn the abdomen pattern. Using thin straight lines create the pattern shown above in the body of your Brimstone.

Step 6: Now you will want to draw the wing veins. To draw these start with angled lines in each part of the wings and add small interconnecting lines until you get the same pattern shown above.

Step 7: The final step is to draw the small circles on the wings in each location shown above. You now have successfully drawn a Brimstone.

Interesting Facts about Brimstones

Brimstones are solid colored butterflies with a couple of dots on their wings. They are a common sight in Europe, North Africa, Asia, and Mongolia. Like most butterflies, the Brimstone has a short life. They hatch from eggs, then as caterpillars they prepare for a long sleep in a cocoon. Next the butterfly emerges from the cocoon and it gathers nectar till its mating season again. Then the females go out to search for a black thorn plant to lay their eggs upon. They leave and die. The eggs hatch and the process begins all over again.

Did you know?

  • Although a Brimstone’s life is short, it is still has one of the longest lives for butterflies. A total of 13 months!
  • Males are yellow and females are a pale yellowish-green.
  • There is a myth that this butterfly was the namesake of butterflies, because of the yellow color. Originally the insects were called “Butter colored flies.” It was then shortened to Butterfly.
  • A Brimstone’s wingspan is 60 to 74 millimeters.
  • Brimstones are the only species of its genus.

Activity: Draw the familiar shape of Brimstone butterfly. Give the line drawing to each child, and then gather up glitter, glue, markers, crayons, etc. Ask your children to show you what they think the prettiest butterfly would look like. Allow their imaginations to go wild.

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