And the following weekend...

I've given up on Every Day in August. Plus, I like the prompts from World Watercolor Group better. So here are my three from the weekend:

Favorite Beach

It may not be my favorite (too crowded, too hard to find parking), but being an Angeleno, what else could I do for this one but the iconic Venice Beach?

This is Micron pen and watercolor. I bought this long skinny sketchbook to get myself to do more panoramic views like this, but you have to work pretty small (it's 6x12 inches). It may take me a while to fill it.

Favorite Cup or Mug

This is my favorite mug aesthetically (a gift from Anarda, who has excellent taste), but I don't drink coffee out of it much because it's so big and wide open that the coffee gets cold too fast. But it's great for drinkable soup! I decided to try this one à la Liz Steel--I made a faint pencil outline of the cup, and everything else was painted spontaneously without drawing it first. I was hoping for a little more control, but I hurried through it and the red got away from me. Should have given it a lot more time to dry between colors. But it gives the flavor of the mug.

Favorite Ocean Creature

I love sea otters. I think they must be the cats of the ocean--fuzzy, cute, playful, mischievous. I guess you could say the same thing about dogs, but I'm a cat person, so...cats.

This was hard to paint, especially on sketchbook paper. Fur is hard enough without trying to convey the difference between wet fur and dry fur, and fur that is under the water! Props to pet portrait artists--who knew it was so tough?