If pencil art were a person, it would probably spend a lot of time alone, scoffed at every time it tried to make friends. An upcoming exhibit of 46 artists from seven countries at Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts will help give the centuries-old art form – now too often thought of as the stuff of kids’ scribbles or adult colouring books — the enthusiastic acceptance it deserves.

The Canadian-based Pencil Art Society is presenting its 2nd International Open Juried Exhibition Sept. 29 – Oct. 11. It includes a reception and awards ceremony Oct. 1 as well as other events.

“There are a lot of pencil artists out there and they’re just not paid attention to as they should be. Pencil art is not taken seriously,” says the society’s vice-president and co-founder, Erica Lindsay Walker. “Maybe it’s associated with sketches or work that’s not quite finished.”

The heft of pencil art is evident from even a glance at some of the works in the upcoming show, including Walker’s mysterious Besieged, which depicts a snake curled around a glass jar containing a chess piece (what’s the snake doing there? why is the rook inside a glass jar?).

Those attending the show should expect the unexpected, says Ottawa-based Walker: Varied subject matter from portraits to landscapes, depth of colour, a range of emotion. “Everything paint can do, pencil can do.”

Allison Fagan, another local exhibitor at Saint Brigid’s, says that when she visits pencil art exhibitions, “I look for the Wow! factor. What strikes me not just for (its) technique, but for depth. Is there a story involved? Does it draw the viewer in? (I think,) ‘Look at the detail, the number of layers!’ — all just using the tiny point of a pencil, not the large swath of a paint brush.”