The Monarch | Illustration

The Milkweed butterfly, also in another name of the Monarch butterfly, inspired me when I watched BBC's Spy in the Wild Series 2 in February.

In episode 2 "The North", in this scene located the mountain in West Mexico, with the Spy Hummingbird capturing the place that's considered the world's most beautiful natural gathering, where the Monarch butterflies hibernated during the winter. It was Spring, the Spy hummingbird flying around millions of butterflies resting on the oyamel fir trees (I just looked it up of what kind of tree because I can't remember what it was, hehe). When the sunshine on them, warmed their delicate wings, then started to fly. And when they fly, it was absolutely spectacular, all orange and flow through the trees. I imagined myself in there, underneath them and watching them as they migrate to North. I felt calm and delight thinking about it, it was awe-inspiring.

Being called the Milkweed butterfly is because they feed on various milkweed plants, although it's not native to British isle however it's the rarest migrant. I suppose it's good enough for my illustration of British Wildlife.

Took out one of my sketchbooks, look up the image search for a source, firstly sketch and then paint. Then another idea appeared in my mind, took out my black paper sketchbook, as I thought that orange on black would make it stand out, so it's striking. 

Here's my illustration of the Milkweed Butterfly, on white.

How vividly does this look?

And here's one on black.

I really like this the most, I'm thrilled with it, I imagine this will look amazing on the wall.

If you like to know what I saw in this programme, this is the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dv56

Enjoy!