Light Grid / White SIlk

Starting a new painting for the Location series. It's a light grid, stretched on a frame and attached to c-stands, used to keep the light even on the actors' faces. Here it's tied to the tree in the crew parking lot until needed. It's from a photo taken on The Walking Dead show last year, on location in Senoia, Ga.

Having bought, toned and gridded the canvas, and done the under-drawing yesterday, I spent an hour this morning mixing color and then jumped in. I blocked in the sky, the pasture and the grid cloth, and began the country road. Worked until lunch on the line of trees in the far background and the dappled shadows cast by the tree.


After lunch until 3pm I kept going on the patterns of light and shadow cast by the tree and the dirt road. 

Haven't blocked in the tree canopy or placed the fence posts which run between the road and the pasture, but feel a lovely sense of momentum. The darks in the deepest part of the shadows wll need multiple layers, as will the sky, but the pasture and trees look very close even on this first pass. Feels so good, like flying.

 

Why did this particular image grab me by the collar and holler 'paint me'?  It has to do with the visual anomaly of this isolated bit of movie equipment in a rural scene.  The shadow of the tree trunk reminds me of Indonesian shadow puppets. The peaceful, pastoral stillness of the background contrasts with the twisty reach of the shadows spreading out toward the viewer. It fits its zombie series origin.