Day 30 - Avalon Pier, Late Afternoon

The day is finally here! This is the last painting of the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge. A few days late, but I'm pretty sure nobody cares except me, and I did have some tough few days.  

Avalon Pier. 11x15" Watercolor and Ink on watercolor paper. $120. Buy here. 

The painting is continuing (and probably not concluding) my Catalina theme. I put quite a lot of time into this one, beginning with a a fairly complicated drawing: and even some masking (and if you know me, you know I hardly ever use masking liquid):

I also wanted to keep the sky fairly dark and wasn't able to achieve that in the first wash (stuff dries quickly here in the desert!). So it took several washes to get to where I was sort of happy with it. The rest of the painting was just a lot of detail and small-brush work, which I don't do that often, either.  

Avalon Pier, cropped. 

I made the sky area large intentionally, but it seems to make the whole painting a bit too gloomy...So I am considering a more conservative crop. What do you think?