MILFORD — The 2021 Big Draw Festival Delaware, presented by the Mispillion Art League, is part of an annual international event celebrated in more than 25 countries during October.

This year, MAL is bringing the theme of environmental awareness to each ward in Milford and the surrounding communities.

Come out each Saturday in October and paint a butterfly using your hands or feet. Not only beautiful, butterflies also do a lot of good for the environment. Like bees, they pollinate plants as they flutter from flower to flower, and some species eat rotting fruit — which gets very sugary and soft — helping to keep the environment clean and beautiful.

Butterfly-painting will be one of many art activities at this year’s Big Draw Festival. Visitors can build monsters with toilet paper tubes, create sidewalk chalk art and paint undersea life — real or imagined — on a huge roll of paper.

While supplies last, get a free sketchbook kit (sketchbook, pencil, pencil sharpener and eraser) and make drawings of your neighborhood, including the butterflies.

The Big Draw Festival will be held each Saturday in October, rain or shine, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at these locations:

• Oct. 2 — Banneker Elementary School, 449 North St.
• Oct. 9 — Avenue United Methodist Church, 20 N Church St.
• Oct. 16 — Lulu Ross Elementary School, 310 Lovers Lane.
• Oct. 23 — Milford Armory, 604 N. Walnut St.
• Oct. 30 — Bicentennial Park, downtown.

In addition to the free Saturday events, MAL has several adult art classes in October. For details and to sign up, visit mispillionarts.org or  facebook.com/thebigdrawde.

This organization is supported in part by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.