Brenders was born near Antwerp, Belgium, and has drawn since childhood. He studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Antwerp and later at Berchem. He has produced wildlife illustrations for a series of books entitled The Secret Life of Animals. His artwork is regularly exhibited in the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum's prestigious Birds in Art and Wildlife in Art shows.

The wildlife images of Brenders' art are first created from pencil sketches; from these sketches his mixed media paintings of watercolor and gouache are completed with a technique he has developed during the last 25 years. His paintings, which encompass every intricacy of nature, devote equal attention to the detail of the wildlife subject and its habitat as well as to the mood created by the light. His art is the subject of the critically acclaimed book, Wildlife: The Nature Paintings of Carl Brenders, published by Harry N. Abrams in association with Mill Pond Press.

Brenders' art enjoys international acclaim. He is widely collected in North America, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, Holland, Argentina and in his native Belgium. Brenders combines his dreams, his senses, his imagination and his strict attention to anatomical perfection to make his paintings. He says, "Nature is already beautiful, already perfect. That is why I paint the way I do with so much detail and so much realism - I want to capture that perfection."