Here’s little ‘trotty’ wagtail who went in the rain, according to the poem by John Clare, the 19th Century poet known for his celebration of the English countryside. The Pied Wagtail is a highly distinctive black and white bird with a strutting walk and a tail constantly moving up and down. It’s ‘tittering, tottering’ motion […]
Birds
Birds in your Garden
This delightful book (published 1989 and currently available very cheaply on the secondhand book market) is full of wonderful illustrations by John, many in full colour. It takes you through a whole year in your garden with ideas for how to attract more birds, and how to understand their behaviour – tips as relevant now […]
Fairy Tern
A delicate all-white Fairy Tern (Gygis alba) flies in an azure sky, somewhere over the Seychelles or Aldabra atoll. Bright sunlight makes its wings almost transparent. £130, 11 x 20 cm in A4 mount These little birds are relatively common across the tropical oceans of the world despite their daft parenting practices. The female lays […]
Chiffchaff, The Proud Songster
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 For sale as part of the #artistsupportpledge £100 buy now […]
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
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 […]
Aldabra print available to order online
The print of Birds on the Lagoon Shore, Aldabra is now available through our online shop. The high quality Giclée prints are printed to order and can be posted to addresses world-wide. If you are interested in any of the original artworks please email us to check on their availability. Writing about his experiences in […]
‘The Herald’ series
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. Some of the articles can still be found in The Herald archive [search for “Birdwatch” before 2000] […]
Garden birds on a bird feeder
This was a favourite subject matter for Dad, but usually executed in characteristically free-flowing pencil drawings and watercolour. This is a rare oil painting on the subject. A peanut feeder has hung on the wire balustrade outside the dining room window since the house was built, feeding many generations of robins, chaffinch, nuthatches, a great […]
Landscape for a Hunting Kestrel
Very many of Dad’s big landscapes put the viewer on a high point looking down, often looking across from one side of a valley to the other, or in the case of the many rock pool paintings, looking vertically down. Here we are so high above the landscape looking down that we have no view […]