The Girls Just Wanna Paint theme for February was "shadow". This is my take on the theme, and image of the New England Aquarium's Myrtle, grande dame of the big tank. She cast a beautiful shadow on the rocks and plants below.
You can see my process photos below. I mixed a ground of neutralized Prussian Blue, Ultramarine an some Cad Red Light, covered the board, evened out with a paper towel. Then I used a clean brush and clean solvent to wipe away all the light areas. So, I did my initial drawing by wiping away the ground. If I make an error in drawing, I could just brush over with the ground color and make the needed correction in drawing. Before any painting beyond the ground was done, the painting was in place as you can see here in the first process photo. Most of my work then went into the dark areas, where I adjusted 
the temperature and hue. The benefit of this approach is that the values in the darks are already matched. Each passage of color I put down was designed to match the values already in place. I did not touch any of the light areas until the very end. Thanks for looking. Feel free to ask me any questions about this block-in method.
You can see a recent video post on my Instagram which shows the beginning stages of this process in a still life.
A always, thank you for looking. I appreciate your thoughts.
By the way, I named this painting after one of my favorite books as a child "Down and Away Below" by Edwin Rols. Great story about a child, and his ability to dig deep, find bravery, and save his community.
