Thanks fredweena - I am glad that the work does more than sit there. That's why I leave the pencil strokes evident to the eye. It usually seems that when we can see underlying structure the pieces have more life.
I liked that comment about colour, willravel. I spent a few years drawing with ink, then with pencil. People would say they wish I would use colour. Now I put colour in and it is working
- even though you don't see it
Actually, I neglected to look at these pieces through a piece of amberlith or rubylith ( orange or red transparent graphic film you can cut windows in for print camera work). The orange or red strips colour from a piece and allows you to see it almost as a greyscale, which is helpful when considering the balance and strength of the work. I completely forgot to look at these ladies that way, and my scanner hasn't caught their colour so I won't even try to look at the final digital image in photoshop.