“…He was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) and was also External Assessor for Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art, 1989-92 and again in 2000. In 1989 he began a Seabird Drawing course based at North Berwick which has continued every year since, and he has led courses […]
Obituary – The Times 11 July 2015
John Busby, wildlife and landscape artist, writer and teacher Speed of observation was essential to much of John Busby’s wildlife art. It allowed him, for example, to capture the precise millisecond when, say, a peregrine braked before striking its prey. “His drawings appear to have been cut from the sky with a few strokes of […]
Obituary – Scotsman 10 July 2015
by Darren Woodhead “One cannot draw or paint ‘what one sees’ in front of one without being aware of what is happening on the page or canvas in the process. However fascinating the subject matter, we need equal fascination with the whole business of making marks with which, in a childlike way, we can identify. […]
Obituary – Guardian 29 June 2015
By Stephen Moss ” ‘My work is rooted in landscape and in the living birds and animals as they are part of it. I aim to show how creatures move and to express the visual delight they bring. I try to combine accuracy with artistry.’ So the wildlife artist John Busby, who has died aged […]
Lines from Nature
Busby’s curiosity about and delight in the natural world jump from every page of this book by Mark Boyd in the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club Journal Arguably among the most influential British wildlife artists of the post-war period Drawn to Nature feature in the BBC Wildlife magazine Aug 2016 I don’t see how anyone could be […]
Living Birds of Eric Ennion
Published by Victor Gollancz 1982 Edited by John Busby, with an introduction and commentary. “Eric Ennion was a unique but not widely known genius of British wildlife painting. A Cambridgeshire doctor with a passion for nature, he gave up medicine to pioneer Field Study Centres and to write, to broadcast and above all, to draw […]
Drawing Birds: an RSPB Guide 2nd ed.
Second edition including the work of more artists and with a foreword by Bill Oddie published 2004 “This is a fully revised and updated new version of a popular RSPB handbook to the art and joy of drawing birds. John Busby beautifully conveys his own remarkable ability to capture the grace and notion of living […]
Drawing Birds: an RSPB Guide 1st ed.
First edition published 1986 “John Busby looks at birds with the eye of a birdwatcher and artist, and explains his techniques with the ease and enthusiasm of the expert teacher. The book is divided into six sections. The introductory chapter describes some of the ways artists have looked at birds in the past and […]
Mural Notes by the Artist
St Columba’s Mural Notes by the Artist “The mural was painted in 1959 in place of the original stained glass window, bricked up in 1957. Mark Kemp instigated the original idea and the theme of the painting, though changes were made as the design progressed, under the guidance and encouragement of the new Rector, George […]
Christ in Glory – mural
This magnificent mural in the Scottish Episcopal Church of St Columbas-by-the-Castle in Edinburgh was painted by John Busby in the late 1950’s. Some digging in the National Records of Scotland office brought to light the vestry minutes at the time the mural was commissioned and a Church Newsletter from April 1981 was unearthed which had […]