New year, new calendar cover for my mom's birthday (It's this weekend).
Yet again the watercolor paper retrieved from the depth of the closet, the watercolors dugged out from the shelf and dusted off and the watercolor pencil refilled with water. It was pure therapy working with this medium instead of the digital, for a change. Good for my soul and brain.
However, something did ruin my mood a little though...
Last year I painted my mom some field mice. When searching for references I didn't stumble upon anything out of the ordinary, but for these sea otters (with babies)?.. Half of the images where AI. Pretty sure because It's rather rare seeing otters with their pups. But still... it annoyed me.
I am not a fan of generative AI. I dislike the idea behind it, I dislike how people use it and how it looks. The AI sea otters were so glossy and fake or just straight up merged blobs. Meh.
But this post isn't supposed to be a super rant about that. In the end I found some cute (non AI) reference photos, and I really like the result. I saw real sea otters when I visited the US all the way back in 2012 and it was magical. I get why my mom wanted those on her calendar cover.
Have a lovely weekend!