He began drawing and painting at a very early age and has never had the desire to be anything but a serious artist. His early work was directly influenced by his grandfather, Emil Rust, Gil Elvgren, Bob Toombs, and Norman Rockwell.























Donald Rust was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1932.he feels there has been no one single influence in his wildlife art and insists that all wildlife artists have affected his style.
For many years, Rusty's paintings concentrated on circus and portrait subjects; but recently, wildlife subjects have intrigued him more and more.

Rust's paintings hang in the Ringling Museum of the Circus, Sarasota, Florida, the Norman Rockwell Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.