Paris Sketchbook is a workshop unlike any other
You’ve seen those travel sketchbooks, bursting with life and color. Stories and adventures pop off the page.
A filled sketchbook is a memento unlike any other. Sketchbooks are intimate and personal and carry the power to bring you back to that moment and all its sensual detail instantly. You think: I wish I could do that. Well, now you can!
Join world-famous sketchbook artists in Paris for the creative adventure of a lifetime.
Beyond drawing or sketching, we will show you how to combine words and images to bring your Paris experience to life in your pages.
Our goal is simple: to fill a sketchbook in a week. You'll love learning new ways to capture your life in your pages.
Imagine the fun you'll have with a group of creative adventurers like yourself
Finally feel creatively free
- get past insecurities about drawing
- break the curse of the blank page
- have fun making memories in your sketchbook
Make space for your artist
- focus on what you want to capture instead of getting caught up in trying to draw everything
- slow down enough to capture the wow of your experience
Learn practices you can use at home
- take ideas and sketches from your sketchbook into your art
- fit sketchbooking into a busy schedule at home or away
By the end of our week, you will have gained confidence in your style and will love seeing your full, vibrant sketchbook pages.
What our students have to say
"This week has been just so precious to me. I normally get bored so fast with any sort of formal course. But this week was just bundles of joy. Each teacher is so different and so engaging.
Thank you so, so much."
- Lorna
"Such a magical, soul-nurturing, fun, enriching connection-creating week! Thank you to all the teachers and participants who showed up open and eager to learn and create. I would recommend this in a heartbeat. It was fun, enlightening, expansive, well-run and well-priced."
A travel sketchbook improves your experience at home and away
You may already keep a sketchbook, or you wish you could do it when you travel. Yet you don’t feel confident enough to sketch in public. Let’s get you sketching, because the benefits are enormous! A sketchbook can be a:
- friend in every moment
- ally to help you see and feel more
- way to slow down and savor a life-changing moment
- friend-maker and connector
- cherished memento
- fun thing to share with friends after the trip
- seed bank for future art and writing projects later.
What To Expect
This is a group experience that’s customized by you. You choose your lodging and means of getting around the city - bike, metro, walking, or taxi - yet you are part of a group with a shared mission: have fun filling our sketchbooks.
Every day, we’ll meet for workshops on different elements of keeping a travel sketchbook. This workshop is about much more than drawing or sketching. Other workshops focus on drawing skills. We share the basics of drawing but share much, much more.
Alongside a group of new creative friends, you will have a ton of fun learning and exploring. You’ll get instruction and inspiration from a different teacher each day.
You’ll also get to design your own Paris experiences. Spend the afternoon at a museum, visiting galleries, or as a flaneur. You will set your pace and fill your pages with your Paris adventures.
You will have the option to attend 'studio hours' in our atelier on select days. Here, you can practice drawing and fill your pages with guidance from members of the sketchbook team.
We will also host optional meetups, 'sketchups' to connect with the group, mingle and do more sketching.These informal gatherings at the Pont des Arts, Luxemburg Garden, artist studios, and other magical spots in Paris give you a chance to make friends and share your experience. Buddy up with fellow sketchers for dinner.
You’ll have time on your own to tick things off your Paris list. Museums, neighborhoods, restaurants, and cafes are yours to discover and enjoy - with your sketchbook always at hand to capture the experience.
Paris is calling. Are you answering?
(Your artist is!)
Finally, a way to travel with like-minded creatives with just enough focus and free time
This is for you
Calling artists of all types, writers, sculptors, architects, stitchers, and people who love to observe the world and want to capture it in color and line.
Seasoned sketchbook keepers or blank page beginners are welcome.
You are a savvy traveler who feels ready, willing, and able to make your way in Paris on your own and with the group. This is for you if you want to:
- travel in a creative way, with your artist in the lead
- overcome fear of perfection in your creative process
- finally get rid of self-consciousness and the story "I can't draw!"
- keep a sketchbook but don’t have the practice or the tools
- refresh your sketchbook practice and get new ideas and inspiration
- go to Paris but don’t want to go alone, but also don’t want to do a tour.
- be your creative self and have a blast at play in Paris.
Paris is glorious for sketchbooking
Paris is an artist’s dream. Parks, gardens, cobblestone-paved courtyards, stunning architecture, and river-wide vistas… there are a million things to capture in your pages.
Paris makes it easy to slow down with benches, pocket parks, and cafes galore - perfect spots to pause, sketch and refresh your spirit with a beverage or snack.
We’ll share our favorite bookstores, cafes, parks, and magical spots for you to discover and capture in your travel journal.
Imagine your sketchbook filled with your Paris stories: outings with sketchpals, moments in cafés, delicious treats you ate, people you met, plus ideas and insights that you will use later in life and art.
Rave reviews
"Paris Sketchbook is a wonderful way to come and SEE Paris as you have to really LOOK when sketching anything in a travel sketchbook. All the teachers sparked great ways to approach making a travel journal, it felt as thought there was something for everyone, whether a novice or experienced journaler."
"I loved Paris Sketchbook! I liked the variety of approaches across the instructors; they built on each other nicely. So much thought went into this, and it showed. From the small touches of Paris Sketchbook rubber stamp to the photos of us at the end, clearly, you cared to make this a special, memorable experience for all of us. GOOD JOB ALL!!"
Get ready for the time of your life
What's included
Daily workshops
Daily instruction in English with three sketchbook pros. Instruction in drawing, lettering, storytelling, collage, color, and overall freeing up your artist from three world-renowned artists.
Inspiration for your artist
Carefully curated Sketch Kit for the art supply lover in you. You will love the goodies we've chosen for you!
Afternoon meetups
Along with a few optional 'open studio hours' where you can get some sketchbook time in with support from members of the sketchbook team, we will host optional late afternoon meetups (we call them sketchups!) Locations could include a visit to an artist's studio, a gathering on the Pont des Arts, sketching in Luxembourg Garden, Père Lachaise cemetery, or a group boat ride on the Seine.
Closing celebration
Final 'show and share' to celebrate our sketch adventures
Not included:
- Lodging
- Airfare
- Transportation to and around Paris
- Meals
- Excursions on your own
By the end of our week, you will:
- Have had fun in Paris in ways you’ve never experienced before
- Know how to fill a travel sketchbook in your way and style
- Return home with a sketchbook full of drawings, color, line, stories, recipes, love notes, poems, directions.
- Own a new set of skills and insights about how to travel with your artist in the lead that you can use anywhere, anytime.
- Love having a group of new creative friends.
Imagine a workshop that's fun, easy, and low-pressure
Imagine a workshop that's fun, easy, and low-pressure
Much more than a workshop about drawing
With three seasoned sketchbook artists and teachers, imagine how much you will learn. You’ll get guidance in:
- Drawing or sketching to express your style
- Hand lettering to make bold statements
- Experimenting with different techniques
- Using color and line to capture a moment
- Quick storytelling devices that sum up your experiences
- Telling a story with ephemera and collage
A peek into previous workshops
Meet Your Teachers
Your sketchbook teachers are fun, generous artists
Meet your cohort of creative pals who will help you enjoy travel in a whole new way.
You’ll get instruction and inspiration from some of the world’s most devoted sketchbook keepers. Each teacher has honed their skills and style by filling hundreds of sketchbooks at home and on travels. Meet your guides:
Koosje Koene
Documenting life from your point of view
(pronounced “Kosha Koonah”) is an artist, illustrator and writer, and co-founder of Sketchbook Skool. Ever since starting a regular drawing practice herself, she’s been teaching others why drawing makes you happy and can change the way you see the world and yourself. In her sketchbooks, Koosje draws the world around her; she captures exciting adventures as well as everyday things. She does this in her classes, in her weekly YouTube series Draw Tip Tuesday, and in her book “life is better when you draw (it)”
Marcus McAllister
Sacred Play with Marcus
Marcus McAllister is a French-American full-time professional artist based in Paris for the past twenty-five years. In his acrylic paintings and long-term sketchbook discipline, he layers figures, animals, text, abstract signs and mystic symbols to create meaningful dream-like glimpses of his inner universe.
Cynthia Morris
Fall in love with your life as a creative adventure
Cynthia's illustrated journals are bursting with color, drawings, and snippets of life both on the road and at home in Colorado. Her pages show how to see familiar and faraway places with new eyes. Cynthia is the creator of Writual Blessings, a colorful deck of affirmations for writers. Cynthia illustrated the book, How to Sell Your Art Online by Cory Huff. She has been leading writing and creativity workshops in Paris since 2005.
More rave reviews from Paris Sketchbook
"What a wonderful, splendid, extraordinary week and workshop. Beautifully organized, with time off and on. So much creativity and generosity of spirit. Un grand merci!"
- Faith McLellan
"I am so enriched by everyone - teachers and classmates - so wonderful. This is the life of joy. Love having pieces of joy from you all now in my sketchbook."
- Kerry
Are you ready to have the time of your life with your new creative friends? (that's a hellllll yes!)
We're different teachers with a shared ethos:
Anyone can fill a sketchbook
This is not about being an artist or being good. Our program focuses on process, exploration, discovery and play.
We're all in this together
Your inner critic might want to bring competitiveness, but we have a bouncer to leave the compare and despair beast outside the gates.
Your way is the right way
There's no way to do your sketchbook wrong. Your way is the right way. We'll present fun options for you to play with.
Your inner critic is not invited.
And, we know that fears and doubts are inevitable. We'll do our best to point you to joy, play, and experience. Not judging, self-critique, or despair.
This is not about accurate depiction
Our sketchbooks are about the creative process. It's not about drawing or learning art techniques. It's certainly not about having the right supplies.
Play & fun are our purpose
Travel and sketchbook making should be fun. We can't help but play and bring our joy to your learning.
Not about skill development
While you will learn new techniques, this is not a craft workshop where the focus is on learning how to draw or paint. There are lots of those out there; our program serves your creative joy.
Sharing and generosity is in our blood
Your guides love to share their pages, their process, their joy and experience.
We all have a vibrant sketchbook practice
We keep sketchbooks because doing so brings our truest selves and art to life. We want this for you, too.
Your investment in Paris Sketchbook will pay off for all future travel and creative projects.
More reviews from our students
"Thank you so much for opening my eyes, healing my heart, and connecting me to artists. This was fabulous. See you all soon! Thank you for enriching my life beyond words."
- Liebe
"What a WONDER-filled workshop!! I loved every moment! I could totally be myself. Amazing finding my tribe members in Paris! I feel blessed."
- Liezl
FAQ
Are you ready to have the time of your life with your new creative friends?
Ready for the creative adventure of a lifetime?
"Would I recommend Paris Sketchbook? Oh good LORD, YES!!!! One of the best things I've ever been to. Perfect schedule, excellent leaders."
- Faith McLellan
"Paris Sketchbook is a great way to allow your inner artist to emerge in a safe space and get inspired enough to want to come out to play more often in daily life. A nice kickstart to a more creative life."