Saturday, January 26, 2013

Twilight Zoning

Invaders, 5x7" acrylic

It's winter, and I am in hibernation mode.  I'm not alone; I went out to K&W Greenery a couple days ago to visit the koi and sit in a warm greenhouse with lots of green tropical plants.  The koi are definitely moving slowly these days.  In the summer they swarm to the surface of the water for fishy treats, but they couldn't be bothered to do anything more than slowly fan the water and roll their eyes up toward me.  I can identify with that.

Winter finds me reading for hours, researching this and that online, and sitting in front of the wee television in my studio watching programs I have recorded.  The other night I had a half hour to kill, and I decided to watch one of my stash of saved Twilight Zone programs.  It turned out to be The Invaders, from the show's second season.  Agnes Moorehead plays a woman alone in a rustic cabin, terrorized by tiny spacemen.  It was gripping.  She never says a word, just wanders from dark room to attic with a candle and often a knife or an axe, determined to save herself.  The twist at the end was not surprising to me now because I've seen so many of these programs, but I'm sure when it aired it was a shocker.  What really appealed to me was Moorehead, how well she portrayed both her fear and her determination to survive.  I went back and played the program a second time, pausing occasionally to sketch her face or posture in the dramatic lighting.  This little acrylic painting came from those sketches - though I omitted the axe she held in the original shot.  Her expression is creepy enough. 

1 comment:

ann @ studiohyde said...

This is a really good painting especially considering you took the reference from a television screen. It certainly has atmosphere.