Finding the light and shade in the greenery is fun. Endless possibilities and probably still needs some tweaking.
Next step - dress the swallowtail butterfly in formal black tie.

​I am taking a 5 day portrait painting class online this week with artist Alain Picard. Painting people is not my strong suit, but I take heart from Leonardo - “What do you mean ‘it doesn’t look like the Duke’? Who will know in 500 years?” 

I learned the best tip in the first 10-minute instructional section on the first day - a styrofoam ball with a stick through it top to bottom and an equator drawn on it indicating the brow ridge. A longitude drawn the other direction represents the nose ridge. Tilting the ball clearly shows what is visible as the head tilts in various positions. Drawing it from directly in front, the circle of the sphere is the head from crown to just below the nostrils. The chin is drawn as a triangle below and the ears on the sides at the same level as the brow ridge.  The sketch pages in my many how-to portrait  books finally make sense to me now! 

No, just not dressed in its black tuxedo yet. Maybe tomorrow...

Oh dear, now it is a cabbage butterfly :(
No, it is actually the white acrylic underpainting for wonderful transparent yellows that will make the swallowtail glow in the sun. 
Let's see if that theory works...

Full oil painting this time. The thin oil underpainting is the sketch and general colour layout.
Next step - correct any design issues and detail the background farms a little. Let that dry for a couple days.
Maybe I should add the waterways and trees, and let that dry for a couple days. 

Oops, now the background is too busy.
So paint over the background to conceal the waterways and trees, and rethink the design elements. I like the dark patch against the main butterfly, but it is too centred and will be lightened anyway when I haze over it for the arial perspective. But can I use that idea somehow? First let that all dry for a few days and see what ideas show up.
My plan was to glaze over the whole thing to make it hazy with distance (i.e. the aerial perspective.) However, I may have to make sure the background fit the concept. Currently, the values are reversed - the darks should be at the bottom and the lights at the top... or maybe not, if they are coming down to the land...
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When the background is finished and dry, I get to paint all the monarch butterflies.