BrightKidz Library
Subjects
Paint one wing, fold, and the other wing appears On the left a sheet of paper folded down the middle, shown by a dashed line, with a blob of paint worked onto the left half only and the right half still blank. A curved arrow shows the paper being folded over and pressed. On the right the sheet has been opened again and the paint has printed itself onto the side it never touched: a butterfly with two wings that match exactly, spots and all, a body down the middle, two antennae, and a dashed line marking the fold that is also its line of symmetry.

Symmetry in Art: The Magic Mirror Butterfly

About 4 minutes

Fold a piece of paper in half, paint one side while it is still open, then press the two halves together. When you open it back up, the wet paint has copied itself onto the other side — a butterfly with two matching wings, made from paint that only touched one of them.

What is Symmetry?

Imagine drawing a line down the middle of a picture. If both sides of the line look exactly the same, that is symmetry — like looking in a mirror. Butterflies and leaves are two everyday examples.

Make Your Own Symmetrical Butterfly

Here's how to create your own symmetrical butterfly artwork:

  1. Fold a piece of paper in half: This will be the center line of your butterfly.
  2. Paint one side: Open the folded paper and paint a design on one half of the paper.
  3. Fold and press: Carefully fold the paper along the center line again, with the wet paint inside. Press down gently but firmly to spread the paint to the other side.
  4. Open and reveal: Open the paper to reveal your symmetrical butterfly.
  5. Add details (optional): Once the paint is dry, you can add details like antennae or patterns with markers or crayons.

Why Does This Work?

When you fold the paper and press the paint, you're creating a mirror image. The paint from one side transfers to the other, making both sides look almost exactly the same.

On your finished butterfly, where is the line of symmetry?

The fold does two jobs at once. It is the crease that presses the paint across, and it is the mirror line the finished butterfly is built around.

The fold you used here is the simplest kind of symmetry — one line, two matching halves. Try the trick with a different shape, or fold along a diagonal instead of straight down the middle, and see what changes.

A grid with a mirror line down the middle. You draw on one side of the line only, and every square you fill appears at once on the other side, the same distance from the line. Later a second mirror line arrives, across the middle as well as down it, and one square you fill turns into four.