30 Birds in 30 Days Preparation

For the 30 birds painting party, you'll need to prepare your birds in advance, trace and transfer and ink them in first, like so, below. Alternatively, scroll beneath and you'll find all my inked in birds (some done more quickly than others; all the detail will be in the painting!) and if you're in a super hurry you can print them off and use them as templates, or even print them off on smooth watercolour paper if your printer will take it and colour them in, during our painting sessions.

For speed, you can print out the bird and rub Conté crayon on the back, or pastel, or loose earth coloured pigment.

2. I use my Ether brush for the transfer itself, here: https://www.theperfectbrush.co.uk/product-page/ether-brush

3. It's hard yet flexible and won't ruin your printout. Alternatively you can use a pencil (but that will ruin your printout or tracing). Or: if you have time, do it the long way, which has its own benefits: trace the image on tracing paper and transfer that with the Conté crayon or using a trace-retrace method by tracing the pencil again on the back, and then right side up again to transfer.