Are You Sure You Don't Like My New Hat?

The flesh tones are completed, so Terry does the blacks last since they are the most dangerous part to get smudged. Fixative is applied once the painting is complete.

Terry's work is done almost exclusively in pastels, like Weird Tales artist Margaret Brundage. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation. The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process.

The painting is 18" x 24".

I watched Terry create another piece (not the one in this gallery) from beginning to end after he had done several commissions for me. The process took several hours of course and Terry usually works over several days for the pieces I got from him, but when I watched he put a considered effort into getting the piece to the "almost done" stage.

Once finished he uses a fixative to keep the pastel in place, and that takes a little while to set. Since Terry uses pastel paper which is very thick, textured paper, there is no penciling involved whatsoever.

For a piece like this one, he has his source material and simply "eyeballs" it. He does not use a projection system or lightbox at all. It seemed almost incredible to me as I watched him go from the reference to the finished drawing and then build up the colours.
The outline is from black (or sometimes dark brown) pastel sticks, not pencil or ink.