Wild Life Drawing Online: Bats

Name me a species with more unique faces than bats. I'll wait.

There are over 1,500 known species of bats worldwide, accounting for roughly 20% of all classified mammal species (a fifth! of all mammals!) and these mostly nocturnal, gravity-defying, nimble flyers have been exploiting niches in the food chain for millennia. Bats have adapted to suck blood, filter fruit juices and snatch insects on the wing, resulting in a wide variety of....faces. From the huge honker of the hammer headed bat, to the skin folds of the wrinkle faced bat, to the little leaf noses of the Honduran white bat, there is a whole world of wonder. For our first class to kick of the Autumn season we'll be exploring some of the more unique faces in the bat world, tracing their adaptations back to their habitats and feeding habits.

Anyone who is familiar with our lovely Laura will know that she is totally batty about bats, so it makes absolute sense for Laura to host this online drawing class. She will be welcoming Cecilia Montauban, a Peruvian bat ecologist and conservation researcher with a passion for wildlife, tropical ecology, and for sharing her love of bats. She recently completed her PhD at Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum, where she researched how tropical forest loss affects bat diversity and the ecosystem in Ghana and Zambia. Over the past eight years, Cecilia has worked on bat conservation projects across Africa, Europe, and the Americas so she will have some spectacular stories from her (mostly nocturnal) work in the field. Laura will be bursting with bat related questions and there will be plenty of opportunity to ask your own.

Our class will begin with a nose-to-tail run through of bat anatomy, with a focus on faces, followed by a step-by-step guided demo from some amazing reference photos, meaning you can relax and enjoy learning as we draw. Laura will have top tips on how to capture the folds and facial features, to make sure your artwork comes out looking bat-tastic. The class is open to all ages and abilities – especially beginners – so whether you haven’t drawn since school or you draw daily, you’ll get plenty of joy out of the session.

All you’ll need to take part is some paper, a pencil, a sharpener and a rubber, but feel free to experiment with other materials if you’re feeling adventurous. We’ll email you an event link along with instructions, material options and reference images ahead of time. And as with all our online sessions, you’ll receive a recording of the class afterwards so you can watch it back whenever as many times as you like.

50% profits from this class will be donated to Cecilia's PhD conservation research project, documenting bat biodiversity in rainforests that are highly fragmented and increasingly threatened by logging and mining activities, and rapidly expanding cacao and rubber plantations.