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John Busby, Artist

Landscape and wildlife artist, illustrator and author

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‘The Herald’ series

July 15, 2018

UPDATE: Since we have over a hundred press cuttings from the Birdwatch series I am always keeping an eye out for likely pictures that might be part of that series.  Recently I have found three ‘new’ ones to bring the total of known originals to 45.  Mind you, of these 31 have already sold, so if you fancy a John Busby original of Curlew Sandpipers, Great Northern or Red-throated Divers check out the gallery below quick!

———–

In the late 1990’s John Busby did a series of small ‘greyscale’ watercolours for The Herald newspaper in Scotland. Each was of a single species of bird and was used for the ‘Birdwatch’ column in the Saturday edition.

Twite by John Busby
Twite

Some of the articles can still be found in The Herald archive [search for “Birdwatch” before 2000] and are beautifully written by Hugh Ouston.

Birdwatch – the ice hunter

Birdwatch – inconspicuous acrobats rooted to the branch

The pictures are mostly drawings with soft grey or brown wash added, no doubt to look good in black and white newsprint.  A couple of the drawings are in colour – a promotion to the colour supplement perhaps?

After publication the drawings were all dutifully returned to the artist (complete with a large sticker on the back and occasionally with scrawled titles in thick black pen!)  Some were sold at the time but many still remain and are offered below.

The ‘pen and wash’ style was one John Busby often used for illustrations. Since he contributed illustrations to over 70 books in addition to writing his own, we have quite a number of these detailed, mostly single species drawings!

Blackbird on berries
unsigned watercolour 16 x 20 cm £150 available from Birdscapes Gallery originally published in The Herald in the 1990's see blog
Corn bunting
19 x 15 cm Pen and wash drawing £130 buy now
Curlew Sandpiper
initialled pen and wash drawing 17 x 22 cm £130 buy now part of The Herald Birdwatch series published 16 Sept 1995 see blog
Dabchicks
initialled watercolour 13 x 22cm £150 buy now
Great Northern Diver
initialled drawing 13 x 19 cm £130 buy now first published in The Herald 8th Feb 1997 see post
Great Tits on monkeynuts
unsigned watercolour 17 x 16 cm £150 available from Birdscapes Gallery originally published in The Herald in 1990's see blog
Greenfinch
unsigned watercolour 13 x19 cm in mount 25x30cm £130 buy now original illustration from The Herald 1990's
Mute Swans
signed watercolour 14 x 21cm £200 buy now
Red Kite
20 x 16cm initialled pen and wash drawing £130 buy now
Red-throated Diver
unsigned pen and wash drawing 13 x 19 cm £130 buy now first published in The Herald 27th Jan 1996 see post
Ringed Plover and chicks
pen and wash, initialled 15 x 28 cm £250 at The Donald Watson Gallery, Scottish Ornithologists' Club, Aberlady contact published in The Herald in the 1990's see blog
Tree Sparrows in tree
initialled pen and wash drawing 16 x 16 cm £150 at The Donald Watson Gallery, Scottish Ornithologists' Club, Aberlady contact original illustration from The Herald newspaper 1990's see blog

Pictures with a <buy now> link are available from our online shop.

 

Filed Under: Birds, Blog, Pictures, Publications

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