The August 2016 edition of BBC Wildlife Magazine carried a six page article about Lines from Nature showcasing selected highlights from the book.
Arguably among the most influential British wildlife artists of the post-war period thanks to his bestselling books, John Busby had a gift for capturing the essence of a species with just a few lines, marks or washes. Fellow artist Darren Woodhead writes that Busby’s drawings and paintings “live and breathe the magic of their subject. His gannets soar and hang, stall and drift again, riding the currents of air as lightly as the pencil glides. How beautifully his young foxes leap… how deftly the hand of the artist suggests the feathers and down of a barn owl.”
Busby mostly portrayed British wildlife, but he also travelled widely, and was equally happy sketching the sun-baked wilds of The Kimberley in Australia and Eleanora’s falcons in the sky over Crete. He was a founder of the Society of Wildlife Artists, and his spirit lives on in the organisation’s unmissable annual show held in London at the end of October. Visit the SWLA website for details of this year’s exhibition.