Branching Out: new charcoal drawings take shape

For Spring 2026, we’re continuing our mini-series of artists' First Impressions with these superb new charcoal drawings by Wendy Rhodes, inspired by the ancient pathways near her South Cotswold home.

Here are some images of the first three, plus a very enjoyable time lapse video of Wendy creating them - scroll down to view it. As a sought-after art tutor and former art teacher, Wendy also offers us some top tips on how to make the most of this fascinating and versatile medium. So, draw up a chair, have a glass of wine to hand and enjoy a few quiet minutes of first-rate art insight and tuition...

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Wendy finds endless artistic inspiration and challenge in the fields, lanes and trees near her South Cotswold home and this new series of charcoal drawings is no exception: "My home village is situated in a beautiful valley, approximately half way between the market towns of Tetbury and Nailsworth. The lanes in these drawings run through the village to Cherington and Cherington Ponds, up to Minchinhampton and out towards the West End of the village. We are fortunate to have countryside around the area that forms part of the Gatcombe estate and Minchinhampton Golf Club, mixed with a huge variety of habitats such as mill streams with natural meadows, farmland, ponds and woodland. The village has a Norman Church and links with Queen Mathilda, suggesting that many of the lanes and bridleways date back to the 12th century, evidenced by the fact that they often appear as sunken lanes or holloways, much-used and weathered over many centuries."

To capture these ancient places, in terms of creative techniques, it's a case of skills melding and playful persistence: "The techniques I use derive partly from my graphite drawing and partly from my etching processes. The three strands of my practice inform each other. I work heavily into my layers, drawing and re-drawing, building up textures and tones. I explore a wide variety of mark making and various ways of applying the charcoal to achieve different effects: this can involve using different size pieces and a variety of brushes and cloths to work the charcoal into the surface. I also use a lot of subtractive mark making and erasure and have a large range of erasers of different textures and materials, some of which I fashion into particular shapes with craft knives.

"One of my favourite tools is a brush designed for painting (or stippling) through stencils to create decorative patterns on walls. The brush fits ergonomically into the palm of my hand and withstands use with quite a lost of pressure over large areas. I use it to blend and smooth charcoal into seductive tonal passages."

She makes it sound easy but, really, she says, it's a case of trial and error: "There are no great secrets to the way I work and much of it has been developed through processes of play, experimentation and necessity – if something doesn’t work I play around until it does. A particular light effect or surface texture may demand more exploration and so necessity drives much of the final result. Of course, there are less successful drawings that just don’t work, and which are consigned to a drawer to be ‘sorted out’ one day, but all those drawings form the building blocks of an increasingly sound practice."

With this level of careful creativity and inventiveness, it's no surprise that each drawing takes around a week to create and carries its own power, boldness and strength coming through in the marks, the shadow patterns and the stances of the tree trunks and their branches.

Survivors

Wendy’s observational details stir an empathy in us - she imbues the trees with personality and treats each one as an individual, worthy of our admiration and respect.

Describing the drawings, Wendy says: “I think of these raggedy trees as ‘The Survivors’. They were the ones left in the lane after some much bigger trees were taken out from behind them. Straggly and misshapen but standing firm.”

Expectation

This trio (‘Survivors’, ‘Expectation’ and ‘Anticipation’) forms the launch pad to a planned new series of charcoal drawings called ‘Gift’: “Sunlight has seemed a rare gift this winter, and bright days are always a gift when we can make use of them. The sunlight gifts us an enlightened view of a lane or path... as artist Laurie Steen said: '...specifically how light shapes us and gets through the shadows'.

"There’s also the anticipation that turning the corner will provide a gift in some small way - a gift of a view or the gift of an interesting piece of path or lane to walk, the curiosity of what lies beyond the turn."

Anticipation

In this case, as in many others, discovering the best tools is another key to success. Charcoal as a medium is often avoided - many artists are fearful of charcoal as it smudges and makes a mess and they think it can't capture detail. But Wendy can advise on how to avoid the pitfalls: "For me, it was the discovery of Nitram charcoal that was the breakthrough. This company, based in Canada, makes charcoal of all sizes, from pieces narrower than a conte stick for small details, to large rectangular lumps that I can fold my hand around and move with great freedom, even on a grand scale. The principal benefits of this particular brand are the ability to build layers and achieve rich blacks. And perhaps its most useful feature is that it creates very little dust. I enjoy blending charcoal into soft tonal values and lifting it back off the surface of the paper to achieve lighter tones or whites.

"I like drawing with traditional willow charcoal too and use it for planning sketches in the studio. There are many small producers that make charcoal sustainably. It’s worth having a look for these people, in your local area, as each different wood or vine produces a different experience of drawing. Depending what you choose, there are alternative hues of black, including brown-blacks, green-blacks and reddish tints. There are also classes where you can learn how to make your own charcoal – even greater encouragement to explore drawing with charcoal."

The three new drawings are A1, 59.4 x 84 cm, on Snowdon Cartridge 130 gsm. They are unframed and on mount board, or can be rolled and packaged for easy postage or shipping

Here's the website link if you would like to know more: https://www.spencerhousegallery.co.uk/product-page/the-gift-new-charcoal-drawings

They're available from now and will be on display at our Whitsun Pride of Place show on the North Cotswold border, running 22-25 and 28-31 May, 10am-5pm each day, with an open evening on Friday 22 May 5.30-8pm https://www.spencerhousegallery.co.uk/events-exhibitions

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/602541_3d5ede79e3de4ae2a684cd2db350749b/720p/mp4/file.mp4