Grab your sketching gear, and come away with me to the unspoiled heart of Italy, where life moves at a slower pace and artistic inspiration abounds.
For ten long, relaxing days, we’ll explore pristine natural areas, medieval hill towns, and wide valleys dotted with farms and vineyards, recording our experiences each day on the pages of our illustrated travel journals.
This workshop will be hosted by La Romita School of Art, which has been opening its doors to artists for more than fifty years.
Where You'll Stay
La Romita is a beautifully renovated sixteenth century monastery set high on a hill overlooking the town of Terni. Surrounded by olive groves in the foothills of the Apennine mountains, it offers a warm and welcoming home away from home for artists who want to immerse themselves in the life, culture, and beauty of Umbria while indulging in their love of painting.
At the start of the workshop, we’ll be picked up at the airport in Rome and driven by private coach to La Romita, where you’ll be welcomed like family.
For the next nine days, we won’t have a care in the world – really!
We’ll feast on dishes made from fresh, local produce and drink organic wines from a vineyard that’s just down the road.
There will be fresh pasta, seafood, meats, and cheeses from local purveyors. And the folks at La Romita assure me that when you eat generous portions of healthy food, you don’t gain weight! I think we need to test out that theory every day while we’re there. 🙂
There is so much to sketch in and around the property that, even during our free time, we’ll be tempted to pull out our paints and capture scenes like these…
Everything from ancient stone buildings and formal gardens…
to olive groves which have stood on these hills for hundreds of years. Some of the trees are over 300 years old!
When we take the time to settle in and draw these places, it changes how we experience them. We look and we wonder; we explore through line and color, and, in the end, we connect with them on a deeper level and begin to feel that they’re a part of us.
We’ll have the luxury of time.
Imagine watching the sunrise each morning from this window…
or sipping an aperitif in the afternoon in a courtyard filled with flowers.
Picture yourself arranging your palette and brushes on a table in the light-filled studio that’s open 24 hours a day. (Insomnia? Not a problem! You can paint at 3 am, if that’s what works for you.)
The chapel-turned-studio has plenty of space for demonstrations as well as generous table space for each participant. Frescoes and paintings adorn the walls, and the adjacent sacristy serves as a lounge area where we can pop over for a quick snack or a glass of wine.
The accommodations at La Romita are simple and imbued with a sense of history that’s in keeping with the legacy of the buildings. The spacious bedrooms are appointed with antique furniture and original paintings. Most of the bedrooms are doubles, but a few singles are available.
Due to the historic nature of the building, most rooms share a bath. To our American sensibilities, this may not seem ideal, but as we live together during the workshop and grow to be like one big family, sharing meals and experiences, it tends to become a non-issue.
The camaraderie of the group, the warmth of the staff, the beauty of the grounds and the destinations, the immersion in culture and escape from everyday life at home, and, of course, the painting, are at the real heart of the La Romita experience. Sharing a bathroom with friends is nothing more than a small inconvenience.
The Tour: Hilltowns & So Much More!
Umbria, known as “The Green Heart of Italy”, is midway between Florence and Rome. It’s an area that’s worlds away from the crowds of tourists that elbow their way through the streets of more well-known tourist destinations in nearby Tuscany.
Its unique character and stunning scenery make it the perfect setting for a painting workshop.
We’ll have ten long days to explore the area, guaranteeing that we have time for the big name places, like Assisi…
as well as smaller towns like Orvieto whose cathedral is a masterpiece of Gothic design…
and Spoleto, with its 13th century Roman aqueduct and bridge.
Each hilltown we visit has something special about it. Won’t it be fun discovering which one is your favorite?
But this tour isn’t just about hilltowns and architecture. We’ll also go shopping on market day to see what treasures we can find.
Italian leather bags, cashmere shawls, majolica pottery, cute hats, handmade soaps – there are so many temptations!
But when I’m pulling out my wallet to pay for yet another beautiful Italian scarf, there’s always a nagging thought in the back of my mind…”Will all this stuff fit in my suitcase?”
It’s the best shopping control mechanism I know!
One day we’ll head over the hill from La Romita to Cascata Delle Marmore, Europe’s second highest waterfall. Originally created by the Romans in the 3rd century BCE, it’s a great place to go for a walk, explore, and do some sketching.
Another day we’ll visit the non-hilltown of Bevagna, known for its artisanal workshops. We’ll visit a master paper maker to see his process, and you’ll have the option to see demonstrations of coin making, rope making, and many other crafts.
Or you can take a stroll along the river, pull out your sketchbook and capture a perfect day in watercolor.
On this painting tour, there will be plenty of time to have a cappuccino with a friend and watch the world go by…
or indulge in everybody’s favorite afternoon pick-me-up…
Gelato!
(Our guide will be sure to tell us the best places to go!)
When you travel to another country, of course you remember the big things like cathedrals, belltowers, and spectacular views, but, honestly, what I love more are the little things.
The things I would never see at home.
Things that touch my heart and make my life feel richer for seeing them.
These will be days filled with fun and camaraderie, where you’ll find the perfect balance of instruction, painting time, sightseeing, shopping, and time to meander on your own.
Now let’s talk a little about that painting time…
The Workshop: Drawing, Painting, & Designing
We’ll be keeping a travel journal during our time together in Umbria, creating colorful pages filled with ink and watercolor sketches that capture all the fun and excitement of traveling in Italy.
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.
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 at La Romita.
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 village street scene to window boxes.
My students tell me that one of the best things about my workshops is the fact that I give them a full-color spiral-bound handbook containing all of the information I cover during our time together. It’s packed with great ideas for designing beautiful journal pages, and it includes a section of helpful step-by-step painting instructions 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 handbook 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 and use to paint subjects closer to home, too.
With my enthusiastic support, encouragement, and assistance, even if you’re a beginning watercolorist, you’ll surprise yourself with what you can do!
I hope this gives you a good idea of what you can expect during my La Romita workshop next fall. It’s a wonderful ten-day tour that takes all the responsibility of planning off your shoulders without locking you into a rigid schedule that doesn’t leave room for serendipity. You’ll enjoy day trips to spectacular places and come home each afternoon to our lovely accommodations. We’ll be taken care of by people who truly delight in sharing their part of the world with us.
You can look forward to having plenty of built-in time to sketch and paint in your travel journal. I’ll help you create a fun, colorful 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.
The Creative Journey: Sketch Your Umbrian Adventure
with Leslie Fehling
10 days at La Romita in the Umbria region of Italy
September 17-27, 2023
Pricing
The price of the 10-day workshop/tour is $3,750 for a shared room. A limited number of single rooms are available for an additional fee of $35 per day. A double room may be reserved for a single guest for an additional fee of $70 per day.
Bring along a friend or spouse and save 7% off with La Romita’s Plus-One discount. Non-painters are welcome to participate in all the excursions with the group, sharing meals, etc…
The workshop price includes your room, most meals, instruction, 24/7 access to the studio, all ground transportation for daily excursions, and airport pickup/dropoff at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome.
More Info
Read about Leslie here.
Read about La Romita on their website.
Helpful information about registration, travel, refund policy, etc.
Questions? Contact La Romita here or email Leslie.
5 Comments
Thank you for the detailed information / instructions here that have been so thoughtfully put together for this exciting upcoming trip! I am truly looking forward to it and to meeting you. I feel as though I already know you and look foward to spending time with my new friend! Not one to wish my life away but am eager for September to arrive!
I agree, it looks like such a great trip. And the folks at La Romita have been wonderful so far, helping me to plan everything. They talk a lot about how connected everyone starts to feel during their time at La Romita. We’ll be building friendships that will last a lifetime. And I like the fact that we’ll have a studio, because it’s so much easier to teach lessons on lettering and borders when we have tables to sit at. It will be a perfect combination of time on location, capturing the excitement and energy of the places we visit, plus relaxed time in the studio to finish things up. I find that I come home with a lot more finished work when we have some time in the studio each day. Looking forward to meeting you, Ginny!
This is going to be wonderful! Getting excited!
Leslie,
I’m very interested in La Romita. Are you planning another workshop there?
Thanks!
I don’t have any plans to repeat the workshop in the foreseeable future. If you really want to go there, they have lots of other tutors who teach for them. Check out their website. I already have three workshops planned for next year with French Escapade: Santa Fe, Giverny (France), and Alsace (France). Do any of those interest you?