With a little unexpected time...................

I thought I was going to be busy outside of the studio all day and wasn't sure when I would get to the trout work again after investing some "think time."  Surprise, I changed my schedule around to wait for the person who is going to repair our air conditioning system.  These extra 4 hours at home allowed me some time to putz.  Of course, I could have been doing laundry, dusting, vacuuming, etc., but with the air conditioning NOT working, it just seemed TOO hot to labor over those tasks (that's my excuse, and I am sticking to it!!)

Below you will see the steps in the process I used to get the trout I was striving to create.

The brownish/purple layer on the top is the final step I shared yesterday.  Note the transparency of the dark layer on the top....this will change with each step. 

I used straight dioxazine purple to add depth and more opacity to portions of the surface layer.  Not only was I trying to make a more solid surface image, I was also trying to create more curvature and depth to the fish body.

In this layer, I started playing with the colors of the dot pattern.    In addition to visual interest, I was also trying to further enhance the body contour of the fish and add some reflected light.  Also building the fin color.

The overall color is not really lighter, just a camera difference.  Note the subtle differences in the underbelly shading/highlighting.  Pulling out some of the purples and blues of the scales also.

Additional tweaks to give definition to the fins and changing some of the purple dots to more teal to reflect the water color surrounding the fish.

This final version of the body of the trout includes additional highlights to indicate reflected light, the addition of the bottom fin, and the lighter cartilage at the forefront of each of the bottom fins. 

What began as a "quicky" fish to explore underwater images, ended with this somewhat impressionistic trout swimming in a Minnesota river.

Acrylic on textured gessoboard panel.  Final size is 5" X 10". The light glare on the left is really just my poor photography and not the light-blast painted into the painting.