2nd Lesson - Marylyn Mayo

Marylyn loved her garden which had ocean views.  A lot of the photos I received from John were of the garden where she had beautiful bougainvillea growing.  As Marylyn's photo is quite light in colour, I decided on a dark, contrasting background.  I painted in the dark greens first using a mix of Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Yellow Deep.  Next I dabbed in a lighter green, swapping the Yellow Deep for Lemon.  I left gaps for the flowers.  I started with Scarlet Lake straight from the tube to get a lovely clean deep Red, then added some Ultramarine for a darker hue.  Then it was time to blend it all together.  I used a size 8 brush to initially brush on the colours then swapped to a smaller, very soft flat No.2 brush.  The trick with feathering off a colour like red with green is to very gently go over where the 2 colours mix and continually wiping your brush off on a rag.  You don't want to end up with mud.