Donal Jolley Gallery
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Donal Jolley
From The Painter 7 Wow! book, by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis
Graphic designer and artist Donal Jolley created Winter Morning (above) and Clay Chapel (below), two of twelve images for the Turning Point 2002 Calendar. To begin the calendar, Jolley worked with his client David Jeremiah to select reference photos. Beginning in Photoshop, Jolley opened the reference photos for Winter Morning (shot by Robert Hayes) and Clay Chapel (taken by Jolley). He removed unwanted elements from the foreground, trees and skies by cloning using the Rubber Stamp tool. To achieve the mood he wanted in each image, he intensified the yellows and oranges in Winter Morning and the foreground greens in Clay Chapel using Photoshop's Hue and Saturation controls. So that he would be able to isolate areas of the images (for instance, the snow, sky and water in Winter Morning and the truck and church in Clay Chapel), he made selections and saved them as alpha channels. Then he saved the image with its alpha channels in Photoshop format, so he could work on it in Painter. Jolley planned to use Painter's brushes for textured brushwork that would add painterly movement to the images and break up the smooth photographic look. Using several layers and paying careful attention to the volume of the forms, he painted with the Artist Pastel Chalk and Square Chalk variants of Dry Media (with a rough paper texture chosen in the Papers section of the Art Materials palette). When he wanted to constrain paint to a particular area of a layer (such as the sky), he loaded a selection based on the alpha channel he had saved for that area by choosing Select, Load Selection and choosing it in the Load From menu. Then he painted within the area. When he wanted to sample color from the layers below, he enabled Pick Up Underlying Color in the Layers section. To blend and pull color while adding texture in the sky, he used the Grainy Water variant of Liquid. To achieve a "salt" effect on the water reflections in Winter Morning, he used the Fairy Dust variant of the F-X brush. Then he added final colored details to the snow, church and water with a small Artist Pastel Chalk.
For Clay Chapel, Donal Jolley used Water Color brushes in addition to the Dry Media and Liquid variants. Jolley appreciates the flexibility of painting on layers. When he wants to make changes to an area he often paints the changes on a new layer, so he can control the strength of the effect using the Opacity slider in the Layers section. After establishing the overall brushwork using the Square Chalk and Artist Pastel Chalk variants and blending with the Grainy Water variant, he painted transparent watercolor glazes onto the old car to enhance the look of the rusty metal. He also added light watercolor washes on top of the pastel brushwork on the midground trees, then painted texture on the foreground grass and road using the Splatter Water variant of Water Color. When the brushwork on Winter Morning and Clay Chapel was complete, Jolley added more texture as follows: First he saved a copy of each image using a different name and flattened the layers in the copies by choosing Drop All from the menu on the right side of the Layers section bar. Next, he made two duplicates of each image by selecting all (Ctrl/Command-A) and Alt/Option-clicking with the Layer Adjuster. On the top layer, he used Effects, Surface Control, Apply Surface Texture, Using Paper, also with subtle settings to add paper grain. On the next layer, he used Effects, Surface Control, Apply Surface Texture, Using Image Luminance, with subtle settings, to "emboss" the brushstrokes. Then he adjusted the Opacity of both layers to his liking, using the slider on the Layers section. He saved a duplicate of each of the final layered Photoshop format files in TIFF format, which flattened the images. Because Jolley was more familiar with color correction and conversion in Photoshop, he opened both final TIFF files in that program, made color adjustments and then converted the images to CMYK for printing in the calendar.