 Hi, my name is Maria, and I'm a visual artist and teaching artist. Today's lesson is gonna be on making butterflies out of origami or paper. So, origami paper or you can just find different kinds of paper at home. So if you have just any thin paper, newspaper, magazine paper works, I created this pattern paper that I'm gonna show you how to cut into a square if you don't have origami paper. So if you have origami paper, just you're just gonna need a square. So it's just a regular square. And then pick out the colors that you identify the best with, a color that represents you. So usually I like greens and blues a lot. So I'll probably make one of the butterflies like a dark blue. And then I also have this pattern paper that I'm gonna show you how to cut out. So you just need a rectangle square. So you wanna make sure when you cut your paper, it's all the sides are equally the same size. So let's see, so I'm gonna guesstimate with this one. But you could also use a ruler. So if you have a ruler, if you wanna make like six inches on each side, you can just put the ruler and cut out. So I'm gonna assume this is all the same length. Okay, so I'm always cutting squares. So it's kind of programmed in my brain already, kind of how to cut a square. So you just wanna make sure that all your sides are evenly cut. You can see, and then you can see there. This one is a tiny bit bigger than this origami paper, but that's okay. So I'm gonna make the butterfly with this paper. So the first thing is you have your square. And you're gonna fold it. I always say fold it sandwich style. When I tell my students, it's like just make sure it's like folded, maybe hot dog also is another reference we refer to. So you wanna make sure that this line is very crispy. So you wanna go with your fingernail just to press it and make sure that it's very pressed. And then you're gonna grab your scissors and you're gonna cut through the crisp. So you're gonna cut through this line that is evenly through your paper. So cut out evenly. So now you have two sides. So kind of like buildings, so two. And so you're gonna grab one of the papers. So these are your wings. So these are gonna be the up and lower wings. So now we're gonna fold them like an accordion. So you're gonna grab one of the sides and bend it over. And then you're gonna flip over your paper and bend over the side. And then continue doing it like this until you're done folding the paper. And you wanna make sure you press every time you fold so that you can retain kind of like the accordion look. So keep pressing. So I always think I'm making a tiny little instrument. So every time I'm folding, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna make a tiny accordion. See, you have like a little accordion wing. And then you're gonna fold it in half. So that's why you wanna make sure you keep your paper small cause it can get really thick and hard to fold. So there you have your lower wings and then spread them out a little bit. And then you're gonna grab your other paper. And so this paper, you're actually gonna fold it right at like, instead of like this way, you're gonna fold it like vertically or horizontally. So you're gonna grab similar what you did with the other. So this one is, so you're gonna fold it like this, like a little, maybe like tiny bit. You don't need to like fold it too small. So you're gonna do the same fold back and forth, like an accordion paper. And then you're also gonna fold this in the middle. You can start seeing, you have the upper wings and lower wings of your butterfly. And then you just are gonna grab a string, a piece of string. So it could be any type of string you find at home. And then with the string, what you're doing is you're making sure to keep your butterfly together. So you're gonna fold it and you're gonna put your string through the area where you folded both of your papers. And then you're gonna slowly do a tight knot, spread them out. You have a paper butterfly inspired by nature. And so see with the origami paper, it's similar. I need to put a string through this, but yeah, so. And then you could also fold the edges of your upper papers of the long wings to give it more like a, if you wanna give it more like a circular wings, you could do a little bit of folding there. We've created a butterfly. So as artists, we use a lot of inspiration from things around us. So a lot of my students and a lot of youth that I work with are really inspired by things that they see around them. So like butterflies, birds or animals. And we as humans for thousands of years have been very observant of the plant life, animal life around us. And we've created artwork out of what we see. So some of the earliest drawings humans did were of the animals and plants. And so you can see how we've created these tools like paper that we make art now with and emulating and inspired by nature. And so when I think of butterflies, I think of freedom, movement, I think of crossing boundaries, borders, like just expanding. And so each of us internally have our own little butterfly. So if your butterfly is blue, your butterfly is pink, it's up to you to create. So this teaches us how we can use paper to create things. So all you need is a piece of paper, a string and scissors. So just make sure you ask your parents, you're like, I wanna make this. Just a newspaper, if you have that at home, you could use a cardboard paper, even like a cardboard from like cereal box. You could use that also. So yeah, so my name is Maria and I'm really glad we made art together today. And I hope you are inspired by nature, by butterflies, flowers, anything you see around. And if you wanna create other type of art with paper, that's perfectly fine. The paper is so flexible. There's thousands of things you can create just with a piece of paper.