LOOKING AT BIRDS
AN ANTIDOTE TO FIELD GUIDES
By John Busby
Wildlife Art Techniques Volume 1
Brand new and unread. Mint new hardback in dust-wrapper.
Publisher's price £20.00
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2013 1st edition. Hardback issue. 4to (231 x 258mm). Ppx,98. Colour illustrations and b/w sketches by the author throughout. Blue boards, spine titled in silver-gilt.
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The first volume in the publisher's Wildlife Art Techniques series.
"We are delighted to be launching our new series of books Wildlife Art Techniques WATs with a work by the internationally highly respected artist John Busby. The aim of this series of books is to become a logical extension to our existing very popular Wildlife Art Series WAS by showing many of the techniques as used by current masters as included within the series. This title Looking at Birds seeks to encourage the watcher to spend as long as possible looking at how the bird moves and behaves in order to get the real 'jizz' of a living bird on paper. John Busby also has a book Lines From Nature within our main Wildlife Art Series." (Publisher's blurb).
"...The trouble is that an individual bird in the field rarely conforms to its identikit image in a book. It has little chance of being seen in exactly side view on the same level as the observer, and the odds are even greater against a flying bird presenting us with a perfect plan-view... Living birds present a far more fascinating range of shape and posture, colour and shading. More often than not parts of their anatomy are hidden by leaves, their plumage colours are changed by light, or their feet are out of sight under water. They would far rather hide from human eyes than be watched, and their plumage is mostly designed to blend with their surroundings. While this adds to the problems of identification, it can also be a great source of delight. It all depends on how you see." (From the Introduction).
Contents include:- Introduction; The size of it; Changing shapes: profiles and postures; Twitching a single species: birds as individuals; Light as a feather: preening; Birds in hiding: birds watching us; Body language in display and defence; Larks ascending: birds in the air; Angles of attack: hot pursuit and aerobatics; Water: reflections; Colour, light and shadows; The rainbow and the cuckoo: coincidences; Birds in the imagination.
A few reviews:-
"This book is a little gem which will bring joy and amusement to the reader." (Tim Wootton in Birdwatch Magazine).
"Thought-provoking? I think so. Busby says: 'identifying a bird is only the beginning'." (Dan Powell in British Birds).
"Looking at Birds is an outstanding guide to observing the world." (John Muir Laws).
About the author: "John Busby was born in Bradford 1928 and grew up in Wharfedale. After National Service, he studied at Leeds & Edinburgh Colleges of Art and was awarded post-graduate & major travel scholarships. On return from France and Italy he taught drawing & painting at ECA from 1958 until 1988, retiring then to become a full-time artist again. He was President of Society of Scottish Artists (SSA) 1976-79, and is a member of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW). His lifelong interest in wild life, and a fascination with birds in particular, led him to become one of the Founder Members of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA). He was External Assessor for Natural History Illustration at RCA, and he has led courses in Crete, the Falklands & Galapagos and at Nature in Art in Gloucestershire. In 1989 he began a Seabird Drawing course based at North Berwick which has continued each year since. He has taken part in projects with the Artists for Nature Foundation (ANF) in Holland, Poland, Spain, Ireland, India, Portugal, & Israel, and in SWLA/Forestry Commission projects in the New Forest & the Oak woods in the west of Scotland. John has illustrated over 35 books about birds and animals, mostly about behaviour, ranging from seabirds to tigers, garden birds to otters, and a book of poems by Kenneth Steven called 'Wild Horses'. His own books are:- 'The Living Birds of Eric Ennion' (Gollancz 82); The classic 'Drawing Birds'; produced for the RSPB in 1986, with a second edition in 2004; 'Birds in Mallorca' (Christopher Helm 1988); 'Nature Drawings' (Arlequin Press 1993); 'Land Marks & Sea Wings' (Lavenham 2005), and a booklet 'Landscapes at the Edge of the Sea' in 2010. He has exhibited widely, and had a major retrospective exhibition at Bradford City Art Gallery in 1999/2000. He is represented by The Waterston Gallery, Aberlady, The Wildlife Gallery in Lavenham, and The Land Gallery, Lockington. He lives near Ormiston in East Lothian, and is married to Joan, a renowned singing teacher. Music is an abiding passion and he is a lifelong Christian. In 2009 he was declared 'Master Wildlife Artist 2009' by the Leigh Yawkie Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin USA."