I’ve been working with colored pencil all my life, but it's been my main focus for the past several years. I am exploring how to create a kind of dynamism with a completely non-dynamic medium. You can layer, use different substrates, coat the paper with pigment or leave it shining through, and mix harder and softer pencils to create different effects. I’m keeping to a fairly muted color palette: I find too-bright colors too much for me. I crave the elemental, the basics. Shape and color and form, all simple, all straightforward. I enjoy the almost painterly effects I can coax out of colored pencil simply with layers - I don't use solvents to blend. Occasionally I lay down a layer of soft pastel or watercolor and enhance the results with pencils, but the gentle repetitiveness of making marks with a waxy core puts me into a hypnotic flow state and the hours fly by.