"Quittin' Time" -- airbrush/acrylic, about 20"x30" if memory serves, which these days is
optional and costs extra, your mileage may vary. This is almost universally acclaimed as
my best piece, and while she's high on my list of favorites, I still say, "...eh."

"Steppin' Out" is still my fave.

But "Quittin' Time" and "Steppin' Out" have one major feature in common ... they both owe
their existence to a black-and-white magazine ad in some magazine for - ahem - feminine
hygiene products.

OKAY, they were both tampon ads. (Or, as I used to put it on my grocery list, "White Owls.")

This lady was a dancer unlacing a toe-shoe, if I recall correctly, and she had that "happy-tired"
look on her face, like she had just had an elating but wearying workout. The original model
was part of what artistical types refer to as a "scrap file" --  a page surreptitiously torn from
the magazine in the dentist's waiting room because the image inspires some irrational
neuron-firing, I leafed through my scrap and she caught my eye, I took the pantograph to her
and started building the spacesuit on sketches, and pretty soon I had yet another of my
"Ladies In Spaaaace!" series pretty well cemented in my mind.

And a couple of accidents happened. (Happy ones, all)

First, she ended up with an uncanny resemblance to Anne Jeffries (sp?), an actress who
I always felt had an enchanting and ethereal beauty. I think her face was the first part of
the painting that I completed, so I had that haunting feature staring at me the whole time
I worked on the rest of the piece. (Entreating me: "Please make the rest of me look this good.")
Anne Jeffries played in the TV series "Topper" in the 1960's, if I recall correctly, and I want to
connect Leo G. Carrol to that role, but I may be confusing the movie with the series.

But the Anne Jeffries image was accidental. Just charming.

Second, and probably more importantly, the piece inspired me to create a new technique I had
begun to think about as part of my day-job activities as the art director for a magazine at the
time. In those days, before the advent of computers in publishing, I did most of my layout
and pasteup with beeswax and rubber cement. I noticed that when I laid down a layer
of rubber cement, when it was dry and I started to remove it, it started coming off in
little random holes that would get larger every time I rubbed them.

Hmm.

So I cut a big hole out of the frisket that masked off parts I didn't want to airbrush
to define the disk of the moon, and I smeared rubber cement all over the exposed board.
After it dried, I started sweeping my hands over the glue and it made a bunch of tiny
holes. I put a neutral grey acrylic (Badger Air-O-Paque) into my brush cup (again a
Badger product, a 150XF dual-action) and I gave the whole piece a light dusting of
color. You could barely see it, but this was experimental and I thought I knew what
I was doing (which happily turned out I did.)

I let the paint dry and I swept the rubber cement again. The holes got larger, the little
random bits I had painted previously stood out from the virgin board, and when I was satisfied
with the results, I dusted the piece with the neutral grey again. I let it dry, rubbed it again,
and now I had a white border around *two* layers of different darkness -- Outside, there
was pure white board. Next was a light dusting of grey. Inside that was a smaller area
of double-dusted grey, subtly but noticeably darker.

Now I knew I was onto something rilly, rilly kewl!

I cotinued to repeat the process, patiently enlarging the holes in the rubber cement and dusting
with pigment, going off to have a beer or recycle some, and coming back and repeating the
process. The lovely organic and random effect of the rubber cement letting loose created a
believable and natural non-pattern that imitated nature to a degree I found very satisfactory.

At some point I decided enough was probably enough, and I rubbed all the rest of the
rubber cement off. I was amazed when I saw what had just happened, over a period of about
two or three hours. It didn't look like the real moon, but who's to say she's not orbiting
some moon light-years away? But it did look like real craters with varying depths and
variations in topography, and I was extremely happy with the result.

When Kelly saw it at a Norwescon later that year, he grilled me: (well, Kelly was
always grilling me over my work) "How much time did you take to make all those craters?"

"About 3 hours," I said. His jaw dropped, and I explained the process to him. As I
did, his big toothy grin got bigger and bigger, and he started nodding, and I could hear
the little wheels in his head spinning faster and faster. Kelly had taught me that to make
organic shapes like weathered alien rocks, you could crumple up Saran Wrap and dab
watery acrylic at the edges, and capillary action would follow the random contours of
the plastic contacting the surface of the board, then you could retouch the edges to make
highlights and shadows and create "living" forms that had a wonderful randomness:
I realized that I had just taught my Master something he had been looking for for years.

Kelly taught me many things and freely offered answers he had, and that's probably the
most important thing he taught me: to freely offer answers. We were both of the opinion
that someone refusing to disclose a technique by claiming it was a "professional secret"
was probably a hack who found one trick and wanted to capitalize on it, but didn't
really understand art. Kelly's own words, which I still use to this day: "Ask me anything.
If I know the answer, it's yours."    

Someday I may tell you the story about how Kelly's nose oil played an important part
in an Analog cover, but this is better related in person with some good old single-malt
scotch in hand.

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