This little illustration was labelled “Proud Songster” and while not specifically mentioned in the poem of the same name by Thomas Hardy, John obviously felt that this Chiffchaff was doing its bit to fill our days with birdsong. Pen and wash drawing 13 x 11cm £100 available from Birdscapes Gallery One of the pleasures […]
See the Wind
What a wind today! Only a few birds spotted while out walking and those keeping close to the ground. It’s not easy to depict the wind on paper but here’s a windy bird picture of Lapwing and Ringed plovers in a strong wind by the Master Wildlife Artist, John Busby. In his book Looking at […]
Birdwatching 75 years ago
Anyone in or around Menston, Yorks, like to re-create this birdwatching walk? It is part of a larger map drawn by John as a teenager in the late 1940’s. Swallows, cuckoos, linnets, willow warblers, skylarks all there then. What would we find today? See original post here
New sets of cards
Just arrived. Four new sets of cards featuring several of the pictures in Lines from Nature. All are 6″sq (15cm sq) with an envelope and with an individual compostable wrapper. They are blank inside for your own message. Shop for CARDS I have grouped the twenty cards into sets of five each, by general subject […]
Book illustrations
John illustrated over a hundred books in full or in part. A fairly comprehensive bibliography was published in his book Land Marks and Sea Wings in 2005. Not usually signed, the artworks would be sent back once the publisher had finished with them. Sometimes these originals would be part of an exhibition accompanying the book, […]
Exhibition ends but…
…the pictures keep selling! All good things come to an end, especially exhibitions. With the pictures sold during the Festival now sent to their new homes in the UK and abroad, the gallery kept a few back and have since sold two more. If you are interested in a ‘second look’ or perhaps missed the […]
On The Daily Telegraph’s TOP 50
Saturday 27th July John Busby: Silent Landscape at the Open Eye Gallery was one of The Daily Telegraph’s 50 best things to see during the Edinburgh Festival and one of only four items in the Exhibitions section. Come and see if you agree!
Silent Landscape Exhibition
The Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh showed a major exhibition of the distinctive landscape paintings of John Busby during the Edinburgh Arts Festival. Featuring many previously unseen paintings, all held by the artist’s estate, this exhibition showed Busby’s avid passion for panoramas and ‘bird’s eye views’ undertaken during his prolific career. Landscape has always been […]
Landscape Looking
John Busby taught for thirty years at the Edinburgh School of Art so I was not surprised to find this handout amongst his papers. Created for his third year Painting and Drawing students it tries to get them to see beyond the merely visual, to really look, with understanding, at the processes that form the […]
Aviary Exhibition – RSA, Edinburgh – January 2019
An exhibition of Royal Scottish Academicians reflecting on the significance of birds as a motif in contemporary Scottish art ran in early 2019 in the Academicians’ Gallery of the RSA, The Mound, Edinburgh, and featured three works by John Busby RSA, including this watercolour of ‘Gannets on the Bass’ which is now sold. 19 January […]