Sketching in the French Alps
with Leslie Fehling

August 24-31, 2026

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Just imagine waking up every morning, flinging back the drapes in your hotel room, and feasting your eyes on this…

I know; it seems unreal, doesn’t it? Like you’re looking at a calendar photo! But I assure you, this is the view of Mont Blanc that we will enjoy every day for a full week during my workshop in the French Alps in August 2026.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. Sometimes it looks like this….

or this…

or even this!

Through every atmospheric change and color variation, whether it’s cloud-covered or sunlit, Mont Blanc looms large in our minds during our time in the Alps and fascinates us with its dramatic beauty. (I must have taken at least a hundred pictures of it during the short time I was there in 2022!)

But there’s more to the French Alps than just one sky high mountain. There are lakes…

canals…

and flower-covered chalets,

gondolas that whisk you to the top of the highest peak in Europe…

and awe-inspiring cathedrals that will feed your eyes and your soul.

It’s an amazing place and one of my favorite workshop locations. It’s hard to express in words the grandeur and majesty of the scenery there, but I hope this post will give you a little taste of what we have in store for you during my 2026 workshop.

The Tour

During our time in the French Alps, we’ll enjoy a varied itinerary that offers the perfect blend of relaxation, sightseeing, instruction, and onsite painting.

The tour is being organized by my friends, Jackie and Valerie, at French Escapade. I’ve been working with them since 2017 and have loved every workshop trip I’ve done with them. Students ask me all the time which one has been my favorite, and the question always stumps me. Everyone single one of them has been wonderful! One thing I can always count on, though, is that every French Escapade tour is sure to exceed my expectations and wow all the participants.

The tour begins with our pickup at the Geneva airport on August 24th. That afternoon we’ll have some time to unpack, check out a few of our 4-star hotel’s amenities…

and meet a few of the locals…

before gathering for a welcome reception with the tour leaders, students, and moi. Then we’ll enjoy the first of many gourmet meals in the hotel dining room.

The dessert bar alone is worth flying to France for!

The next morning, on our first full day together, we’ll sketch outdoors on the grounds of our spectacular hotel, with a backdrop of alpine meadows and snow-covered peaks.

The lessons I teach on day one lay the foundation for all the sketching to come.

After sketching outdoors in the morning, we’ll head for our private studio in the afternoon for watercolor instruction, lettering practice, and page design inspiration. By the end of day one, we’ll have a good start on our travel journals, but there is so much more to come over the next six days!

The next day we’ll begin our explorations of the region with a trip to the “Little Switzerland of the Alps”, Megève.

Megève is a picture-perfect alpine village that oozes charm. It’s pedestrian-friendly, so it’s really relaxing to meander through the narrow cobblestone streets lined with picturesque wooden chalets and old stone buildings.

After a brief orientation tour of the town, we’ll spend the morning painting in a sheltered courtyard, which we’ll have all to ourselves.

When we break for lunch, you’ll have a wide range of cafes and restaurants from which to choose.

I’ll be heading to La P’tite Crêperie for savory buckwheat crepes, known as galettes. They’re gluten-free (and delicious!)

And, if I can talk someone into sharing with me, I may even splurge on a dessert crepe, too!

You will love the free time we’ve built into the schedule on this trip. After the group instruction and painting time, you will have several hours to go off exploring on your own and do a little shopping,

have a drink with a friend at a sidewalk cafe,

or settle in and sketch another irresistable scene in this sweet little village in the mountains.

The next day, we’ll visit Annecy, “The Venice of the Alps,” with its cobbled streets, winding canals, and pastel-colored houses.

Our morning sketching session will be held on the shores of Lake Annecy. Framed by steep, forested slopes and snow-capped peaks, its turquoise waters are famous for being the cleanest in Europe.

Then we will explore the gorgeous, flower-filled city at our leisure before meeting back at the lake for an afternoon boat ride.

Cruising along, with the sun on your face, you’ll get a taste of life on the lake. Luxurious homes dot the shoreline, and adventure-seekers launch off the mountaintops in paragliders.

Isn’t this castle on an island just dreamy?

After our filled-to-the-brim day in Annecy, we’ll turn to quieter pursuits the next day when we paint in the village near our hotel. Will you sketch the beautiful Baroque church?

A stairway of flowers?

Or colorful shuttered windows and flower boxes?

Or will you find a quiet cafe and take a few moments to yourself to reflect on just how lucky you are to find yourself in this incredible corner of the world?

You might think our French Escapade tour guides have saved the best for last when we arrive in the town of Chamonix the next day!

Nestled in the shadow of Mont Blanc, Chamonix is a place to linger and enjoy. A glacial river flows right through town, and almost every building is festooned with flowers.

We’ll have several hours of free time in town to pop into a local patisserie for some macarons or grab a few souvenirs for the folks back home.

But the real highlight of the day will be the unforgettable experience of soaring through the air in a gondola from the town of Chamonix to the 12,000′ peak of L’Aiguille du Midi.

I’m not a thrill seeker by nature, but, when I was in Chamonix for my first French Alps workshop, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to view the world from the top of those jagged peaks I had seen from down below.

The gondola seemed to defy gravity as it rose along the sheer face of the mountain, gliding past vertical walls and jagged spires that loomed in front of me.

And then, suddenly, I was there…on top of the world!

It’s an experience not to be missed.

The final day of the workshop will be spent at our hotel finishing up sketches from earlier in the week and having a fun show-and-share session to celebrate all we’ve accomplished. It’s a day to tie up loose ends and have one last lunch on the balcony…

looking out on that incomparable view.

We’ll pack our bags, take a group photo,

and say goodbye to our wonderful new companions and friends. But we’ll take home a sketchbook filled with memories of those incredible days in the mountains.

We’ll have an abundance of rich experiences during my painting tour of the French Alps. These photos can only touch the surface of what we’ll see and do, but I hope they give you an idea of how amazing it’s going to be.

The Workshop: Drawing, Painting, & Designing

Now, would you like to hear a little more about the art portion of the trip?

We’ll be keeping a travel journal during our time together in France, creating colorful pages filled with ink and watercolor sketches that capture all the fun and excitement of being in the Alps.

We’ll sketch outdoors on location each day, but don’t worry, I’ll give you lots of information about preparing your travel sketch kit before you leave home. You’ll have everything you need to paint comfortably outdoors, and French Escapade even provides folding chairs for us, so there’s no need to carry one in your luggage. (That leaves more room for the things you’ll buy while you’re there! 🙂

My teaching will focus on illustrated watercolor journaling and how to create a colorful, varied, and personal record of your experiences on the trip.

But the fun starts weeks before you hop on that plane to fly to Europe – I’ll be emailing you pre-trip bonus sketching lessons to get the ball rolling and help you warm up for sketching on location together.

During the workshop, you’ll learn how to design dynamic pages with unique layouts, borders, and hand-lettering styles, and I’ll offer daily demonstrations of techniques for painting the subject matter you’ll encounter each day, everything from a window box filled with flowers…

to snow-covered mountains.

My students tell me that one of the best things about my workshops is the fact that, for each workshop trip, I prepare a full-color handbook which contains all of the information I cover during our time together. The handbook is customized for each tour, so it is specific to the location and subjects you’ll be painting.

It’s packed with great ideas for designing beautiful journal pages, and it includes a section of helpful step-by-step tutorials showing how to paint the subjects we encounter during the workshop. It goes hand-in-hand with my daily lessons and painting demonstrations and provides a graphic reminder of what was taught and shown in class.

The handout ensures that you can relax during the workshop, knowing that even if you can’t absorb everything during the week, you’ll have complete information that you can refer to later on. With my enthusiastic support, encouragement, and assistance, even if you’re a beginning watercolorist, you’ll surprise yourself with what you can do!

Note: The handbook is provided in PDF format prior to the workshop to allow plenty of time for printing at a local shop or at home. You will also have the opportunity to purchase a printed copy from me and have it mailed to you prior to the trip.

I hope this gives you a good idea of what you can expect during my French Alps workshop in August 2026. This will be my eighth European tour with French Escapade, and I can’t say enough about how well organized their painting tours are and how generous they are with amenities and extras. Workshop participants on some of my earlier trips have told me that their French Escapade tour was the best they’ve ever taken. That’s high praise from people who have had a wide range of travel experiences with a lot of different companies.

One thing that sets Jackie and Valerie’s company apart from the others is that they always have someone accompanying their painting groups. They never drop us off in a location without access to a guide or translator, and there’s aways someone available to help in an emergency. They cover all the bases and are always there to advise, inform, educate, and care for us. I continue to partner with them because they take such good care of me and my students and provide exceptional service that goes above and beyond what’s expected. They make travel easy and fun!

As a bonus, when you join one of my European workshop tours, you’ll travel with a great group of people who share your interests. The friendships that grow from our shared experiences and love of art are one of the best things about a French Escapade trip.

Meet me inFrance next August, and be prepared for a fantastic holiday with lots of built-in time to sketch and paint in your travel journal. I’ll help you create the most wonderful record of our time together, and I promise that you’ll find yourself feeling more confident and excited about your journaling practice when you return home.

Something magical happens on these painting tours. I’ve seen it time and time again. You’ll be changed by our time together, and you’ll never look at the world, or your sketchbook, in the same way again.

So, if you’d like to improve your painting skills, learn more about keeping a sketchbook journal, and have more fun than you can imagine exploring one of the prettiest places in France, I hope you’ll join me for this French Escapade workshop.

Let’s discover the wonders of the French Alps together!

Visit the French Escapade website for more information and to register for the workshop. Sign up soon – these workshops fill FAST!

Pricing

The price of the workshop/tour is $3,990 for a standard double. Additional charge for single supplement. See complete pricing information here.

More info...

Mulling it over? Need more information? Have a question?

Read about Leslie here.
Read about the tour operator, French Escapade, here.
Helpful FAQs about traveling abroad with French Escapade
Testimonials for French Escapade
Questions? Contact Jackie or Valerie from French Escapade here or email Leslie.
Register here.