A Watercolor Painting Workshop with Anita Winter. Known all over the world for its beauty, Provence is the artist's dream destination. Anita Winter will lead a group of watercolor painters on this painting adventure. During the days, we will explore Luberon, and its spectacular countryside of vineyards and orchards, fascinating "perched" hill-top villages, outstanding natural produce and the light of Van Gogh and Cezanne. You will soon see why artists of all calibers are drawn to this alluring area.
 
Location: Bonnieux, Provence, France
Instructor: Anita Winter
Cost: $3,890
Sponsor: Alpine Creative Tours
Website, email, 970-846-9000

Join me for an amazing week of plein air painting in magnificent Provence, France! This is ‘Red poppy season’ and we’ll explore and paint the exciting spring colors of glorious Provence. I’m super excited to teach you painting in such an inspiring place! We’ll paint flower fields, countryside villages, waterways and hillside castle towns, quaint, flower-filled alleyways, medieval churches, fountains and ancient archways. We’ll paint our impressions, dine exquisitely, share gorgeous sights and creative companionship, all while learning and growing our craft. I will share my methods for creating successful paintings with loose brushwork and exciting color harmonies. I will demo in oil and watercolor, but am proficient and happy to help with acrylics and pastels as well.
 
Location: Fontaine de Vaucluse, France
Instructor: Maggie Hellmann
Cost: $3,940 before Nov 30th
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

A well-established contemporary plein air painter in Canada and the USA, Marc Grandbois offers his vision of personal expression through the beauty of nature. This class focuses on how to paint in plein air. Every student is led to better transpose his emotions related to place and time, into an image and to understand the subjective power of colors and gesture in painting. Marc will give a two-hour demonstration each morning en plein air in the Clos Mirabel park and surrounds. A large interior space will be available in case of bad weather. There will be a group critique on the last day for work to be shared by the group, creating both a supportive and exponential effect for future work.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Marc Grandbois
Cost: 1595€ to 2695€ for accommodation + 450€ tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

Join me for one week of sketching with watercolor in beautiful Provence! Drawing while traveling is the best way to experience and remember a new place. Traveling is also a perfect opportunity to learn or hone your drawing skills. When we see new sights everything strikes us as unusual, memorable and inspiring. We have a natural desire to admire new vistas, taste new flavors, inhale unusual aromas and record these sensations through taking photos, but also through drawing and writing. For me, drawing while traveling is instinctual, and I am eager to share my passion to fully immerse yourself in a new place through the practice of travel sketching.
 
Location: Fontaine de Vaucluse, France
Instructor: Rita Sabler
Cost: $3,940 before Nov 30th
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

The wonderful views and landscapes of the French Alps seem to be just made for watercolor. All the incredible villages, lakes and mountains are just begging to be caught on the tip of your brush. Moving from place to place, we will find the best locations to create vibrant and sunny watercolors. Every day will be a discovery for you—and a new opportunity for painting in watercolor. In addition to traditional watercolor techniques, I will introduce you to my personal methods and secrets. Join us for relaxation and enjoyment of the French Alps with a very rich and informative workshop in the open air.
 
Location: Haute-Savoie, France
Instructor: Shari Blaukopf
Cost: $3,840 before Nov 30th
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Join acclaimed watercolorist and instructor, Margie Samuels, for a magical week of painting in beautiful Provence! Each day will start with a short morning lesson, reviewing the watercolor skills that you will be using in that day’s landscape. These lessons will focus on the specific techniques that you’ll need to take your painting to the next level, including: Creating Stronger Compositions; Putting Depth in Your Paintings (with Perspective); Employing Thoughtful Color Mixing; Painting People into your Landscapes for Interest and Movement. This workshop caters to all skill levels, focusing on foundational techniques. Whether you are a beginner or experienced, my goal is to equip you with the skills for creating vibrant paintings!
 
Location: Fontaine de Vaucluse, France
Instructor: Margie Samuels
Cost: $3,940
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

The wonderful views and landscapes of the French Alps seem to be just made for watercolor. All the incredible villages, lakes and mountains are just begging to be caught on the tip of your brush. Moving from place to place, we will find the best locations to create vibrant and sunny watercolors. Every day will be a discovery for you—and a new opportunity for painting in watercolor. In addition to traditional watercolor techniques, I will introduce you to my personal methods and secrets. Join us for relaxation and enjoyment of the French Alps with a very rich and informative workshop in the open air.
 
Location: Haute-Savoie, France
Instructor: Shari Blaukopf
Cost: $3,840 before Nov 30th
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Join me for a week in Provence, where we will spend our week traveling and sketching and capturing all our experiences in our sketchbook. We will sometimes sketch quick vignettes on the go, and at other times, we will paint more immersive panoramas where we slow down to capture the essence of place in a single piece. Our travels will take us to beautiful riverside villages, lavender fields, cliffs of ochre and gardens where Van Gogh sketched. There will be markets and town squares to draw in and gourmet food to enjoy and capture in our sketches. All in all, you are promised a week filled with rich experiences and lots of art tips to up your travel-sketching game!
 
Location: Provence, France
Instructor: Suhita Shirodkar
Cost: $3,940 before Nov 30th
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

While learning the importance of oil painting techniques (values, edges, composition, etc.), the joy of actually painting France en plein air won’t get lost on Kathie! The enthusiasm for painting the mountains, lakes and chalets with you will be contagious! Kathie will walk through her process of narrowing down the choices of subject matter and then demo before it’s time for you to get your brushes wet too… and she will be right alongside cheering you on with personal instruction and encouragement! There is a reason why you want to paint. Kathie will work to help you tap that desire by throwing herself into the entire experience and beauty of the French Alps!
 
Location: Haute-Savoie, France
Instructor: Kathie Odom
Cost: $3,840 before Nov 30th
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Join Kevin Scully at the beautiful Atelier Clos Mirabel estate in the French Pyrenees for a week of drawing and painting in the medium of your choice. During this painting holiday the emphasis will be on creating work that captures the sense of space and mood of our delightful surroundings, and producing paintings that are both loose in style, and enigmatic in atmosphere. Kevin Scully will be giving plenty of demonstrations as well as providing individual guidance in choosing the right materials, choosing a composition, tonal arrangement, and suitable colour schemes to help you produce some exciting paintings. Whether your favourite medium is oils, watercolours, acrylics, or pastels, the retreat is for painters of all levels of experience.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Kevin Scully
Cost: 1595€ to 2695€ for accommodation + €400 tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

A unique art workshop/art tour open to artists of all levels and media (oils, acrylics, watercolors, etc.). Seven days of plein-air painting, art history/theory lectures, and gastronomy in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence followed by four days visiting Barcelona’s top art sites and enjoying Catalan cuisine. The price of CAD 4700 per person (around US$ 3450) includes instruction, 11-night double accommodation, 11 breakfasts, 6 healthy lunches, 6 gourmet dinners including wine, transportation from the Manosque train station to our lodge, transportation to all painting sites, TGV train ticket Avignon-Barcelona, transportation and entrance fees to all sites on schedule (Cézanne’s studio, La Sagrada Familia, Picasso Museum, Miró Museum, etc.). Limited single rooms for a supplement of CAD 875 (around US$ 650).
 
Location: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence & Barcelona, France
Instructor: Prof. Yves M. Larocque
Cost: US$3450
Sponsor: Walk the Arts
Website, email, 800-611-4789

This class will encourage you to paint what inspires you. Focusing on elements of the environment at hand – landscape, architecture, food, culture, colour – we will create not just finished paintings but a library of source information for future development. This class is designed to help you get the most out of painting while traveling. Certain things peak each painter’s interest: Mountains in the distance, a garden, or a bowl of fruit. Students will choose their subject matter and Kat will work with each person individually to help them get the most out of their painting time. Group discussions and exercises will focus on finding dynamic compositions that best describe your unique experience of a particular location.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Kat O’Connor
Cost: 1595€ to 2695€ for accommodation + $575 tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

Experience the beauty of South West France through the lens of Urban Sketching! Immerse yourself in the playful world of mixed media landscapes guided by Sketchbook artist Jenny Adam. This dynamic workshop with Jenny Adam offers a harmonious blend of techniques, allowing you to simplify nature’s complexity while infusing your artwork with texture, color, and emotion. We will work on location, discovering the landscapes and villages, but also make time for exploring art in the comfort of the atelier. Course Highlights include: Playful Drawing Techniques, Understanding Media Properties, and Exploratory Exercises.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Jenny Adam
Cost: 1595€ to 2695€ for accommodation + 320€ tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

Join Róisín Curé for a fun week exploring the joys of sketching. Create your own original artwork and discover a beautiful area of France. As an artist, confidence is key. The path to confidence comes down to two things: volume of work produced, and being guided correctly. In this immersive, week-long course I will demonstrate and teach the key elements that will raise your game as an on-location sketcher: composition, accurate drawing technique, mechanics of watercolour for beauty and control, using a limited colour palette, and rendering correct values. Each day we’ll be out and about (or in studio in the case of bad weather), choosing small scenes in which you can capture a beautiful vignette of the area.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Róisín Curé
Cost: 1295€ to 2495€ for accommodation + 500 Euros tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

Join me for an unforgettable painting holiday in Giverny, a strikingly beautiful part of France famous for its stunning scenery and captivating light. We’ll have plenty of time to capture once-in-a-lifetime experiences on the pages of our watercolor journals. You’ll learn how to add style and interest to your sketchbook pages through the use of unique page layouts and borders, and we’ll cover several fun new lettering styles. In addition, I’ll offer daily demonstrations of techniques for painting the subject matter you’ll encounter each day. And you’ll be painting right along with me, since we learn more by doing than by simply observing. The workshop is suitable for all levels, but some experience with drawing and watercolor would be helpful.
 
Location: Giverny, France
Instructor: Leslie Fehling
Cost: $3,840 before Jan 31
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Join Cindy Briggs and Theresa Goesling in the French Alps and have a creative life experience. You’ll enjoy inspiring locations such as mountains, lakes, chalets, meadows, daily painting demonstrations, personalized instruction, and encouraging support from Cindy and Theresa. “We show you how to simplify and design your subject, draw confidently, jazz up your colors, paint with serendipity and experiment with new techniques. Create colorful paintings en Plein Air with an emphasis on celebrating your own unique point of view”.
 
Location: Haute-Savoie, France
Instructor: Cindy Briggs & Theresa Goesling
Cost: $3,840 before Jan 31
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Do you struggle to apply watercolour or get overwhelmed sometimes when sketching? I will help solve your problems by showing you how to make fast improvements through sharing my most successful tips with watercolour sketching. You will receive plenty of individual tuition, demonstrations and examples to support you along the way. Return home armed with new skills in watercolour and sketching as you will have learnt how to sketch confidently, understand paint consistency and application and mix wonderful glowing colours to capture the magical scenes of Giverny. I will encourage you to sketch what makes your heart sing! The subjects covered will be truly inspirational – including French buildings, landscapes, local scenes and Monet’s garden!
 
Location: Giverny, France
Instructor: Judy Salleh
Cost: $3,840 before Jan 31
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Experience the Provence region on an immersive artistic journey with Alicia Farris. Alicia adores sharing her passion for watercolor painting and inspires with her creative energy and loose and lively painting style. She feels artists share a special sense for both seeing and feeling their subjects. She helps inspire her students to use color and light to paint a story from their hearts, not merely from what their eyes see. You’ll have the opportunity to watercolor paint, sketch and photograph your way through this spectacular region of Provence. Whether it’s the beautiful gardens, the lovely vistas, colorful markets or the quaint villages that inspire you, Alicia will guide you through the creative process.
 
Location: Luberon, France
Instructor: Alicia Farris
Cost: $3,940 before Jan 31
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Come join me for an amazing week of plein air painting in beautiful Provence, France! We will have gorgeous views to paint of cute medieval villages, colorful markets, rivers, olive trees, etc… It is also a place to enjoy gourmet cheese and wine, ratatouille and creme brûlée! You can choose to work with Oil &/or Gouache in this workshop. I will be doing daily demos and assisting you with your paintings. I enjoy teaching and will be there with you to help strengthen your painting skills and artistic voice. We will focus on design, color mixing, and capturing the mood of the day by understanding atmospheric perspective. This workshop is open to beginner and intermediate students.
 
Location: Luberon, France
Instructor: Ellen Howard
Cost: $3,940 before Jan 31
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

One week Painting retreat at a genuine medieval castle in South West France all expenses paid from Angouleme train station at start to end with American masters John Hulsey & Ann Trusty.
 
Location: Grand Brassac, France
Instructor: John Hulsey & Ann Trusty
Cost: $3,150 to $3,750
Sponsor: Copeland International Arts Inc
Website, email

Award winning artist Jenny Aitken is passionate about the depiction of light in paint. She has taught thousands of students throughout her career, and recently written a book on the subject, Painting into the Light. During this week long atelier at Clos Mirabel in Jurançon, France, she will cover all her methods and techniques, both in the studio and plein air.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Jenny Aitken
Cost: 1595€ to 2695€ for accommodation + £500 tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

Join Kathleen Speranza for an inspiring week of landscape painting. The surrounding fields and distant mountain views will provide a magnificent motif for the study of colour, light and space. Particular attention will be paid to atmospheric perspective and the subtle layers of colour needed to capture it. Students will learn a specific technique of oil painting which will build an image in three stages. Sketching, underpainting and the subsequent layering of thin paint will provide a method for translating the layers of space that can be seen in this uniquely beautiful landscape. A limited, premixed palette will enable a fluid and intuitive approach. Direct observation of light in the morning and early evening will provide a way to isolate and express the poetry of time and mood.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Kathy Speranza
Cost: 1595€ to 2895€ for accommodation + $1,000 tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

Join Rita Sabler for a week of travel sketching in South West France. Document your journey in a sketchbook using ink and watercolour. Let images and words work together in harmony to tell the story of place. Have you ever arrived in a new place and been immediately overwhelmed by its unique character and beauty? Our natural instinct is to capture this beauty, to cherish and remember it. Taking photos provides a quick and easy solution, but doesn’t allow you to really look and absorb the place with all of your senses to truly make it yours. Join us in this magical place with majestic mountains and hidden villages, creating a travel sketchbook that truly captures the place and honors its beauty.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Rita Sabler
Cost: 1595€ to 2895€ for accommodation + 450€ tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91

We’ve chartered the entire ship! So, excluding the friendly crew and staff, just about every passenger will be a fellow sketcher! Your three master workshop instructors are: Brenda Swenson, Shari Blaukopf and Suhita Shirodkhar! This once-in-a-lifetime creative journey includes: 8 days and 7 nights of luxury travel on the historic River Rhine, from Amsterdam through Nijmegen-Arnheim (Holland), to Cologne and Mainz (Germany), through Strasbourg and Ribeauvillé (France), finally docking in Basel (Switzerland). Enjoy on-board sketching sessions, where you’ll learn how to quickly capture natural scenes, skies and townscapes as we sail to our next destination. You will have time to wander, shop and absorb local culture at every stop — or simply sit and continue sketching to your heart’s content.
 
Location: Strasbourg & Ribeauvillé, France
Instructor: Brenda, Shari and Suhita
Cost: starts at € 4,990
Sponsor: French Escapade
Website, email, 510-483-5713

Join Barbara Hirsekorn for a fun week exploring watercolour sketching in the beautiful grounds and surroundings of Atelier Clos Mirabel in South West France. This course is suitable for both beginners with basic knowledge and experienced watercolour painters. The workshop combines demonstrations, discussions about materials and techniques, practical exercises to develop skills, with plenty of individual attention and feedback. The topics of picture composition, colour theory and spatial drawing/painting are also covered in the course. We will alternate between plein air and studio work in the protected atmosphere of the Atelier. Two outings are included. A minimum of two hours walking and standing in front of the motive for a certain amount of time are required from participants.
 
Location: Pau, France
Instructor: Barbara Hirsekorn
Cost: 1595€ to 2895€ for accommodation + 550 € tuition fee
Sponsor: Atelier Clos Mirabel
Website, email, +33.6.79.59.04.91