Simply pencil

Amanda Hall: an image she created for a greetings card (image from here).
I have been thinking of pencil drawing since reading Idaho Beauty's post the other day.  The simple pencil is such a versatile implement which I first started thinking about seriously when I used to commission illustrations.  One artist in particular, Amanda Hall, produces gloriously deep and rich evocative art using her crayons/coloured pencils. 

David Hockney: Ma Maison 1978 (image from here)
There was a time at the end of the 70s and early 80s when coloured pencil work was popular, and of course I had long been an admirer of Hockney's pencil drawings.  So perhaps it was inevitable that when we went to live in the USA and my visa did not allow me to work, that one of the creative ways I explored was to try working with coloured pencils.

I only have a handful of pieces still from those days.  The work was very stylised, but I have liked it enough in one case to work on it further, rendering it in cloth and stitch.

Plantlife 2010
One of the things I liked to do was draw the weave of cloth, or of basket as a background to a figure.  I was experimenting with a backstrap loom in those days, and I enjoyed thinking about structure both with workings in pencil and in yarn.

Sarah Cawkwell: Large Plait No.1 (image from here)
Recently I received notice from Sarah Cawkwell that she is to have work in an upcoming exhibition from 8 February to 12 March at the Millinary Works in Islington, London.  She is a master of the pencil - I love what she does with it.  The work is both meditative, and evokes a sense of meditation - and there is an interesting recording of her talking about the image above which is in the New Hall Cambridge, Women's' Art Collection linked at the foot of this page.