Wow everyone thanks for the great response to this. Janice, your response is so interesting--I have noticed the exact same cyclical learning phenomenon in my own art teaching and you describe it so well. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment!
Joanne, Kathy, Wendy, Sherry, Alicia, I'm so glad this resonated with you. I do believe we are always going to be students figuring out the best way to say things and evolving in our processes.
Sometimes that involves using different approaches: for example this one is NOT done with a typical underpainting but on dark grey paper with a dry underpainting where I wanted to lighten.