Liquid Movement of a White Sand Desert

White Sands National Monument is located in southern New Mexico. Here, great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert and created the world’s largest gypsum dune field. I traversed the hills and valleys of sand, the ever-shifting dunes where the trail was marked using poles rather than a foot path (because a foot path would have been covered almost immediately). I hiked for an hour or so, then stopped and rested on top of a high hill to take in the scene. Except for the bluish purple mountains in the distance and the blue sky above me, everything was brilliant white. I have never seen anything like it! I sat, I listened, I felt the silence, the space, it felt like I was no longer on planet earth, instead i felt as though I had been transported to another world. The sand moved like water before me, it was always changing, fluid. I observed the liquid lines of the dunes, I could feel their chi. This is what I strive to replicate in my paintings, the feeling of movement, the energy of a line.