Day 1 30-30 Motion

Today starts the 30 works of art in 30 days challenge. Just a reminder, I do not work that fast. The challenge for me is too keep working each day. While I am currently working on a few oil paintings I will share some of the works that were created during the road trip this summer. A kind of visual journal of, how I spent my summer.

The start of our trip way back in June took us down to Texas - New Mexico boarder. Our first night was in El Paso, TX the next morning we heading to Carlsbad Caverns, Eddy County, New Mexico. We hiked the caverns and came back for the evening event. The Bat Flight Program, Brazilian free-tailed bats come circling out of the cave, in a dance performance before they go hunting for the evening.

This is a National Park and they do not allow any photographs or videos. No cameras at all. Since, I could not take photos I had my sketch pad with me, as we waited for the bats to come out around sunset I sketched the opening area of the cave. As the bats came out swirling around, I attempted to capture the movement. They are small, I was close enough to watch the event but not to obtain any details. These few sketches are more about the motion, trying to catch the feeling of the bats flying up and out.

The full color sketch I added the bats from the two b&w studies while we were driving through Texas. These are watercolor pencils on Stonehenge paper  6X14.5".