"Down and Away Below" oil 11 x 14 - and using a wipeout method for block in

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.

Turtles - Four views and New England Wildlife Center

Along with teaching 7th, 8th, 9th grade math, I also teach four hours each week of what we call "project".  I call my project Global Graphics, which involves some art, some exploration, some community service, etc.  Project time at school is intended to be service learning, with the students getting behind an idea or project they want to learn from and explore.  We have done a variety of things so far this year, one of which has been to collaborate with the New England Wildlife Center for some lessons about animals; how to care for them, how to establish a baseline so you can know when they are deviating from that baseline and perhaps ill.  I asked my students to remember several of the animals we have encountered, and to paint one of the animals on the front of what will be a set of thank you cards for NEWC.  We met a red-tailed hawk, giant turtle, python, skink, more turtles, screech owl, goats, saw a bird undergoing surgery (including an oxygen mask and anesthesia), watched a swan swimming in a big bathtub as part of his rehab  as he recovered from lead poisoning, watched a bearded dragon receive a calcium and vitamin D injection, and even saw a baby bat in the "super quiet baby ward".   BTW, all those lead fishing weights that are lying on the bottom of ponds and streams are a threat to water fowl who ingest them as they scoop muck from the bottom.  Never occurred to me.

 New England Wildlife Center is a great place... so impressive, very generous with their time, and dedicated to caring for a huge variety of local animals. 

Bearded Dragon