Vic Bearcroft is a professional wildlife and pet portrait artist, who specialises in pastel on velour, but also works in pencil, watercolour, coloured pencil, charcoal, oil and acrylic media.  
Having spent part of his childhood in Kenya, Vic has been drawing animals since he could hold a pencil. Being passionate about wildlife in general - particularly wolves - enables Vic to work with a large number of animal welfare and conservation organisations worldwide, donating prints, merchandise and funds.

“While I consider myself to be a wildlife artist, I prefer to paint close up intimate portraits of animals as individuals, rather than in landscape settings.  My aim is to capture not only the likeness of the subject in my painting, but also the life and soul in its eyes.  To me, eyes are the most important aspect of a portrait – human or animal.  People tell me they can see my paintings come to life through the eyes. 
My preferred medium is pastels on velour paper, which allows me to create both softness and detailed textures in my paintings.”

Winning best in show at his first ever wildlife art exhibition, Vic has gone on to win further awards for his work, including the prestigious 'Endangered Species' category in the 2012 BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year competition. Vic also has his own range of pastels and velour paper created by the SAA, and a highly popular DVD series, ‘Wildlife in Pastels’.

 

Vic's first book, 'Drawing & Painting Wild Animals’, was released in August 2012, and his second book, 'Drawing & Painting Cats', was released in October 2015, both through British publisher Search Press.

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Vic's third book, 'Dark Angels', was released on 24th November 2016 through Little Acorns Publishing, and the first run sold out in just under 2-weeks. 

 

27th February 2017 saw the release of 'The Joy of Sketching'. In this, Vic's 4th book, he has published over 100 sketches and doodles, along with accompanying text. 

 

In June 2018, Vic released his 5th book, 'Tales from Bunny Wood', a story book featuring 17 stories along with colour and graphite illustrations.

Vic travels the UK running private art workshops, art club demonstrations & workshops, and private tuition. He also attends numerous exhibitions, including the Southern Nature Art  annual exhibition and National Exhibition of Wildlife Art. 

In 2007, Vic started workshops at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust in Berkshire and the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent, from which a generous portion from proceeds is donated to the organisations.  

To date, thousands of pounds has been raised for conservation projects from workshops and auctions.

From his original paintings, a large and growing portfolio of limited and open edition prints are available directly through ourselves, and also through a wide and growing number of galleries and individuals in the UK and internationally.  

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Vic lives with his partner, Liz, in Nottinghamshire, UK, with the husky, Ella, and rescue cats.