Meticulously Hand Drawn Illustrations of Butterflies

I’ve been wavering between getting one of these beautiful butterfly prints by artist Rafael Araujo or buying his new coloring book instead. (I’ll probably end up doing both.) At first glance, I thought these were made on a computer using software like Adobe Illustrator. I was surprised to find out that Araujo creates these illustrations entirely by hand, using a pencil, a compass, a contractor and some paint. Each piece can take up to 100 hours to create!

The Venezuelan artist has been called the “undisputed master of golden-ratio art” whereby he draws the Fibonacci spiral, a geometric curlicue based upon a sequence of integers which describes the way things tend to grow in the natural world. Watch the video on the Golden Ratio Coloring Book Kickstarter page for more info.

I’m in love with his butterfly series, particularly the Blue Morpho, Double Helix piece, which can be bought on the Colossal Shop. Here’s its description.

Where most of us simply see a butterfly fluttering in the breeze, artist Rafael Araujo sees an intricate mathematical framework governing the subtle motions of flight. Created as part of the artist’s Calculations series, an ongoing examination of the complexity of life, Blue Morpho, Double Helix teams Araujo’s unique vision of the natural world with vivid color and precise lines.