Kate Boucher-Drawing with Charcoal

Drawing with Charcoal at The Waldron

Course Structure

This four‑day workshop offers a sustained, in‑depth exploration of drawing landscape with charcoal, combining structured teaching with supported independent development. Working in the studio and drawing from source images gathered from the beautiful grounds of The Waldron, you’ll build confidence in technique, process, and how to translate what you see onto the page.
We begin with a short session in The Waldron’s gardens and orchard to gather photographs and simple sketchbook notes. These become the foundation for studio work throughout the course.Days 1–2:
A focus on familiarising yourself with different types of charcoal and related tools, technique demonstrations, how to gather effective source images, and how to use sketchbooks as part of your visual research.Days 2–4:
Increasingly independent but carefully structured working time, with a balance of active teaching and purposeful quiet focus. Kate will introduce Looking & Returning Sessions — short, timed drawing tasks designed to train attention, deepen skills, and help you build a coherent body of work. You’ll begin developing your own themes and ideas, informed by the techniques introduced.Alongside teaching, Kate will work on her own drawings — continuing an existing piece and beginning a new one — so you can see how the techniques she teaches are applied in real time.

Working over several days gives you the opportunity to return to locations in the grounds that have interested you, deepening your understanding of what you want to draw and how you want to approach it. This rhythm of looking, returning, and refining is an important part of developing observational skills as well as technical ability.

By the end of the workshop, you will have the beginnings of a coherent body of work, strengthened your technical skills, and gained a deeper understanding of charcoal as a responsive, expressive medium.