From the moment I first saw Claude Monet’s magnificent water lily paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I’ve dreamed of visiting Giverny to view the garden that inspired them. And now, here’s my chance.

Join me for this week-long sketching workshop, where I’ll finally fulfill my dream — and, perhaps, yours. Join me as we visit Monet’s house, studio, gardens and ponds. Join me for a wonderful week entirely devoted to filling our sketchbooks with the very scenes that inspired the greatest Impressionists: not just Monet, but also Renoir, Pissarro and Cezanne. And, finally, join me as we crown this glorious week with a day at Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh spent his final days.

And what better way to record this memorable week than in our sketchbooks? I’ll share my techniques for capturing the texture and colour of the Normandy Region’s storybook villages and narrow lanes. We’ll sketch gardens and ponds, romantic scenes along the Seine River, and a charming medieval mill. In true travel sketching tradition, we’ll be packing light. Simply bring a small bag for art essentials, and we’ll provide a folding stool.

I’ve designed this workshop to give you confidence sketching wherever you happen to be, whether it’s a busy street in a medieval village or a shadowy garden in the gathering dusk. As we work spontaneously, I’ll show you how to keep your watercolour sketches loose, fresh and vibrant. We’ll begin each day with a short demo and end with a critique, leaving plenty of in-between time to work on your own sketches. As part of a small group, you’ll get plenty of individual attention and feedback, as we work on value studies, vignettes and composition — the essentials to simplifying a scene and capturing its essence. Most important, we’ll make sure to have fun as we sketch, recording our daily impressions as we move from café to hilltop, from riverbank to garden to cathedral. At the end of the week, my goal is that you’ll return home with a fat book filled with fresh, colourful sketches — and memories.

Shari Blaukopf is a Montreal-based workshop instructor, watercolor painter and sketch blogger. She loves to teach, travel and fill sketchbooks with her observations — skills she’s channeled into creating online sketching courses at Learn.shariblaukopf.com.

Shari is also the author of The Urban Sketching Handbook: Working with Color. She’s been active in the Urban Sketchers community since 2012 and has given many watercolor workshops both on her own and internationally through the Urban Sketchers Workshop Program. Her watercolors are in corporate, government and private collections in North America and abroad, and she’s a signature member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.

You can follow her sketches on her blog at shariblaukopf.com or on Instagram @sharisketcher.