A Fishy Tale in the Making ... or ... Koi in Progress

I started with a fairly detailed drawing, then wet all the background and dropped in phthalo blue.  I find I am not using cobalt blue as much, to start with, as it dulls or greys the later glazes a bit.

I added more phthalo blue to the tail, and applied a wet-in-wet wash of indanthrone blue. Then I painted some wubbly lines for ripples.

I spent some time darkening the background, with indanthrone, or a mixture primarily made with that blue.  I also lifted some highlights in the tail fin, both when damp and when dry.

Here, I started glazing the fancy pectoral fins, both w/w and directly. There is a touch of quin. rose at the top of the pectorals. I also shaded the head and body [those parts under water] with a thin glaze of the violet mixture.

Finally, I removed the masking that I had applied to some of the "dangly bits" - what are those things called??
Right now, I am working on the head and body, using quin. sienna and quin. rose. The inside of the mouth is the same rose/sienna mixture, with some of the violet from the background color in the depths of the mouth. This is quite small, only 10.5 x 9 inches, and I hope to finish it today or tomorrow, but knowing me ... it might be a week.
I needed something fluid and yet complicated to take my mind off other things - my aunt, Bruno and the bumps, the whopper traffic tickets I racked up last Friday ...  no, not for speeding.

Anyway, I am very glad you dropped by - thank you! Your comments are always a pleasure.