Hunting is my life and passion but a hobby of mine is to draw. I have never shown off my drawings before and I hadn’t thought about taking it seriously but in the last few months I have been showing drawings that I have done on my Facebook page and on Instagram. For a bit of fun I had a competition to win a drawing of a roe buck on my Facebook page which I got a lot of good feedback from and I also gained a couple commissions. After showing some of my work a lot people seem to be surprised it’s something I do and that also got a lot of attention. I then decided, maybe this is something I should carry on doing and really push myself as an artist.

Roe buck portrait that was in my competition

So how did this all begin? I have been drawing for most of my life except for the last 4 years which I do regret because I was focused more on hunting. Drawing to me was always something I felt good at and always enjoyed doing. In my teenage years I was an active drawer and at that time of deciding what to do with my life I thought about being an artist but hunting was more important and I wanted to keep drawing as a hobby. I had studied art but this didn’t last for long. I was only interested in drawing wildlife and anything do with hunting but my teachers didn’t like that I stayed with the same subject and wanted me to draw/paint other things so I left. I am close friends with renowned wildlife artist Elizabeth Halstead who helped me and also she was the first person to take me out deer stalking when I was 14 years old. Elizabeth is well known for her oil paintings of deer and has worked with The British Deer Society. Drawing for me was just for fun and something to do when it was raining.

A sketch I did when I was bored in class

When I moved to Scotland I stopped drawing completely as I was more focused on deer stalking but that all changed one day whilst at work last year. After a day of stalking I was sitting at the table and there was a blank piece of paper, a pencil and a shooting magazine in front of me so I started looking through the magazine and then I put pencil to paper. I draw’d sketches of deer, foxes and birds and that’s how it kicked off again. I hadn’t drawn for over 4 years and I was surprised I could still do it. It took a while for me to get back into it but I got my confidence back when I did my first original of a fox and a roe fawn.

My first original drawing of a fox creeping up on a roe fawn

Now I have done quite a few commissions and my drawings seem to be getting more popular which is great! At the moment I have been doing mainly portraits which I really enjoy. I like to capture life in my drawings and to be eye catching to pull you in. I wouldn’t say that they are fine detailed drawings but I wanted the feeling that you know you are looking at a drawing and don’t have to wonder if it is a photograph.

If you are interested having a commission made by myself I will do anything from wildlife/dog portraits and wildlife/hunting scenes. All the details are on my website www.brentnorburyhunting.co.uk/artwork. Here you can also buy prints of the roe buck and fallow buck (above) and a red stag.