Langford Press is delighted to be launching a new series of books called Wildlife Art Techniques (WATs) with a work by the internationally highly respected artist John Busby. The aim of this series of book is to become a logical extension to the ongoing very popular Wilde Art Series (WAS) by showing many of the techniques used by current masters as included within the series.
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.
"[...] For a delightful lesson or reminder that birds offer so much more than lists of ticks (or systematic complexity), I recommend this refresher course in perceiving birds very highly."
– D.I.M.W., Ibis 156, 2014
"For many years John Busby’s work has graced the pages and walls of numerous books and exhibitions. His ethos has always been to observe his subjects in the field and record first-hand what unfolds in front of him, rather than what preconceived ideas and published literature tells him he should be seeing. [...] So, not a lot about identification. In this case I don’t believe it’s an issue. After all, birds are unaware of the names we have given to them, but don’t appear to suffer for it in any way. Yet, many subjects that are touched on only briefly by field guides and ignored by most monographs are explored here in depth: reflected light, shadows, odd behaviour, humour and beauty. Roughy, toughy subjects? Probably not. Thought-provoking? I think so. Busby says: ‘identifying a bird is only the beginning’. I suggest in some instances that struggling with names only gets in the way of your enjoyment. Go on, read it, it may change the way you look at birds forever!"
– Dan Powell, British Birds, 09-11-2013