Celebrate Six Days to Halloween with a Nod to Bat Week!
Day two of our Harper Halloween Countdown helps celebrate a very important week that started on Monday: Bat Week! Today’s beautiful Harper design is Caves:
Charley Harper Caves
This intricate design illustrates bats, both fluttering and sleeping, in the safety of their home, a cave. While there is a bat in the forefront of this piece, there are other organisms all over this composition. Just below the centric bat is a cave spider and some creatures in the water; various plants also dot this image along the border.
Pemba Flying Fox Bat
Caves provides a bright contrast to yesterday’s muted piece, Scarecrow. Therefore, more vibrant colors, such as red, orange, blue, and richly toned browns are seen throughout the composition. While the various colors do grab one’s attention, the linework patterns also give unique distinction to Caves. The horizontal lines in the rock structures convey a strong sense of motion and sturdiness. In addition, the horizontal lines at the bottom of Caves give a clear sense of direction for the water’s flow. Harper created a wonderful illusion of depth through the thickness and distance between each line. Harper was able to create a clever atmosphere of volume through his colors and patterns.
Charley Harper had an immense and deep love for nature and the environment. Both he and his son, Brett, have made multiple efforts to support wildlife conservation. Because of Charley’s immense love for nature and all things wildlife, it is perfect to celebrate our second day of the Harper Halloween Countdown with a nod to the environmental efforts of Bat Week! Harper’s Caves was even created in an effort to raise awareness for endangered bats and portions of the sales went to bat conservation programs. The bottom of the poster reads “Take nothing but pictures / leave nothing but footprints / kill nothing but time”.
A sleeping Tricolored Bat
Bat Week is an international effort to help spread awareness regarding just how important and endangered the lives of bats are. Bats make up roughly 20% of the mammal population and live almost anywhere on the planet! They help farmers maintain their fields, protect forests from harmful insects, and benefit just about everyone by helping get rid of pesky bugs like flies. Bats are amazing creatures who need help since so many are in danger of disease or extinction.
This Bat Week, try to do something to raise awareness of our flying fuzzy friends! Some fun and easy activities could include building a bat house, planting vegetation to help bring food, or even just spreading the word about how amazing these creatures truly are.
I won’t leave you hanging after all this neat information about our furry friends; go visit the official Bat Week website for more facts and tips!
Official logo for Bat Week
