Author: Josh Leventhal
Regular purchasers of the Wildlife Calendar likely recognize the name of this year’s cover artist, after all, Ryan Kirby has been contributing artwork to our annual publication for a decade. So, we thought we would share a little about Ryan and his painting, “End of an Era.”
Ryan has been drawing and painting wildlife since 1989. He is a native of Illinois who grew up hunting and fishing after being exposed to the outdoors while working on his dad’s family farm. Hunting was very much part of his upbringing and culture.
“When I was in high school, you could even take your deer tag into the principal’s office to get an excused absence for opening day of shotgun season, which always fell on a Friday,” Ryan says.
Order the 2026 Wildlife Calendar featuing the beautiful, conservation-driven art of Ryan Kirby.
He studied graphic design and multimedia in college before moving to South Carolina to take a job at the National Wild Turkey Federation’s headquarters as a graphic artist and illustrator. He learned about marketing, advertising and magazine publication in addition to art projects like illustrating Tom Kelly’s column at the end of each Turkey Call magazine.
“For the first time in my life, my horizon broadened past the hunt to see the much larger connection between hunting, wildlife and conservation,” Ryan says. “Most importantly, I learned about the importance of conservation and the role of art to help communicate and further that mission.”
After several years working at NWTF, Ryan decided to launch his own business, Ryan Kirby Art, and soon moved to Boone with his wife and started a family. His business quickly grew, and he began painting for magazine covers, exhibiting at the Southeastern Wildlife Expo and creating a variety of wildlife-themed artwork. Learn more about Ryan and his work at ryankirby.com.
Three of Ryan’s paintings are featured in the 2026 Wildlife Calendar. He shares a few details about the cover art below:
Last November on a cool, misty morning, I was 20 feet up a walnut tree and watched a buck chase a doe around a soybean field. As the sun came up and burned off the fog, he finally corralled her into a small patch of cover on a dry dam. I took a video of the action and mentally recorded it for a future painting.
Back in my studio (with a buck tag still in my pocket) I set to work recreating the scene, adding an old, burned up combine in the distance. A Gleaner, to be exact — the brand my family ran for decades. This combine saw many harvests and made hundreds of passes over this field before reaching the end of the road. Could this be the final year for this buck as well, or will he run these farm fields for another year? These are the stories I think about in my mind when I'm deer hunting, and the same ones I try to tell in my work.
Order the 2026 Wildlife Calendar offering moon phases, fishing days, profiles of each artist, and reminders of important wildlife-dates throughout the year.