Advanced_Photoshop_Issue_139_-_2015_UK_

FREELANCER JONLOCK IS PLANNING TO CREATE AN ILLUSTRATIVE

STORYBOOK, WITH THIS STRIKING IMAGE AS A START POINT

JAROFGREENS

JONLOCK

J

on-Lock (jon-lock.deviantart.com),

who graduated from Cal State

University, says that Jar of Greens was

“inspired by childhood, nature, the

axolotls, and a wonderful watercolor artist who

goes by the name Koyamori.” The process was

one of building up the image gradually.

Jon-Lock explains: “I kept on using the Hard

Round brush to make the painting more clear

and refined, especially for the leaves. I wanted to

make each and every plant look uniform and yet,

unique at the same time. So, I explored the

different shades of greens to make things more

interesting. I zoomed in to make the details and

01

ROUGH IT UP

“First, I did a rough sketch with a default Hard Round brush on

the first layer. I always lower the Opacity of the brush to around 40-50%

whenever I do rough sketches. On a new layer, I used the Rectangular

Marquee tool to create the shape of the jar.”

02

CONTAIN THE CREATIVITY

“I used the Gradient tool to make the jar look transparent.

The Opacity of the gradient is around 30-40%. On the next layer, I

started blocking in colours with the Soft Round brush to get the

base/foundation colours needed for the painting. The Opacity varies

from 70-100%. Since I wanted to make this painting more

forest-like, I used some dark blues and greens.”

03

FINDING FORM

“Then on another new layer, I went back to the Hard Round brush (this

time the Opacity was set to 100%) and I started outlining the plants, animals and

the figure. After that, I coloured them in with the desired colour palette and gave

the painting more form and shapes.”

then I constantly zoomed out to see how the

overall painting looks. After everything is

refined and finished, I adjusted some of the

colours to either make certain colours more

apparent or heighten the highlights to give

dramatic lighting.” Some photo references were

used, but then imagination took over.

Iwantedtomakeeachandeveryplantlook

uniformandyet,uniqueatthesametime.

So,Iexploredthedifferentshadesofgreensto

make things more interesting

HOW I MADE TECHNIQUES

© Jon-Lock