Workshop
Inspiration in Oaxaca Sold Out
7 days of art, inspiration, and creative breakthrough.
This isn't your typical workshop.
It's an all-inclusive creative retreat where you'll sketch in ancient ruins, collect inspiration from vibrant markets, and workshop your art practice with master guidance — all while staying in a boutique hotel in one of Mexico's most inspiring cities.
Led by creative coach Antrese Wood and local artist Gabriela Domville, you'll spend a week gathering visual inspiration, hands-on art-making, and vision work designed to reconnect you with your creative voice.
Seven days. All meals included. Guided tours. Creative workshops. Everything handled so you can focus on what matters: rediscovering your artistic joy.
The Experience
Oaxaca has a way of slowing you down so you can see again. You’ll wander cobblestone streets lined with brightly painted doors, taste mole made from recipes passed down for generations, and sketch in courtyards where bougainvillea spills over ancient stone walls.
Each day blends cultural immersion with creative exploration.
Some mornings we’ll head out together — climbing the pyramids of Monte Albán, browsing the markets, or visiting a workshop where alebrijes (those fantastical painted animals) come to life.
Other days, we’ll stay closer to the city — sketching in the cloisters of Santo Domingo, gathering textures and colors in the Botanical Garden, or sharing a long lunch in a shaded courtyard.
By the end of the week, you’ll feel like you’ve lived inside the art — your sketchbook alive with impressions, and your creative spirit reset and brimming with energy.
Meals are definitely part of the adventure too!
We’ll share everything from elegant dinners at world-class restaurants to outdoor lunches in a farm to table experience. Every detail has been carefully chosen so you can savor Oaxaca with all your senses.
Where You'll Stay:
Hotel Azul
Our home base for the week is Hotel Azul, a boutique hotel in the heart of Oaxaca where art and comfort meet.\
Every room is its own little gallery — furnished with contemporary design, tiled bathrooms created by renowned Oaxacan artist Francisco Toledo, and original artwork by Maestro Zárate.
It’s the kind of place where every detail has been thought through: soft robes and slippers waiting after a long day, a courtyard filled with light, and a rooftop bar for an evening cocktail.
From Hotel Azul, everything you want is basically around the corner. We’ll be walking to most of our destinations — which means you’ll log plenty of steps without even noticing, because the streets here are half the fun.
Just remember to bring shoes you can actually live in, not the cute ones that shred your feet after two blocks.
A Glimpse of our Week
Tuesday, March 3: Arrive in Oaxaca.
You’ll check into Hotel Azul and shake off the airport dust. Unpack, shower, maybe flop on the bed for a bit.
Later, we’ll all meet up — Antrese, Gabriela, and your soon-to-be partners in crime — for a welcome dinner.
No sketchbooks, no pressure. Just food, laughter, and a chance to start feeling like, oh yeah, these are my people!
Wednesday, March 4: Santo Domingo & the Botanical Garden
We’ll start with breakfast at the hotel, then a quick intention-setting with Antrese. From there, it’s off to Santo Domingo — sketching in the cloisters while light spills across stone and shadow. After that, we’ll wander the Botanical Garden, surrounded by native plants and towering cacti, collecting rich textures, bold shapes, and maybe a few leaves to press between your pages.
Thursday, March 5: Mitla & the Tule Tree
After breakfast and setting the day’s intention, we’ll head to Mitla to study the Zapotec mosaics — centuries-old patterns you’ll want to trace into your pages. Then we’ll stand before the legendary Tule tree, the widest in the world. Two thousand years of texture in its bark, just waiting for a pencil rubbing or a color study.
Friday, March 6: Market, Cooking, and Murals
First stop: the market — bursting with chiles, herbs, and fruit begging to be sketched and tasted. Then it’s into the kitchen for an Oaxacan cooking class, rolling tortillas, stirring moles, and laughing our way to the best lunch you’ve ever cooked (and eaten). Afterward, we’ll stroll Xalatlaco’s mural-lined streets on our way back to the hotel. You'll have time for a siesta before gathering for an afternoon creative class with Gabriela to pull the day’s colors and textures onto your pages.
Saturday, March 7: San Agustín & FARM LUNCH
We'll head out to San Agustín Etla, a former textile mill turned art center, where the walls still hum with history and creativity. Afterward, we'll slow down with a private farm lunch — long tables under an open pavilion, food harvested that morning, journals open, plenty of time to soak it all in.
Sunday, March 8: Monte Albán & Criollo Brunch
We’ll climb the sacred ruins of Monte Albán, sketching glyphs, stones, and sweeping views that feel like time travel. Then it’s off to Criollo for a brunch you’ll be talking about forever — a Michelin-star chef serving up flavors so good they’ll probably end up in your journal too. YUM.
Monday, March 9: Alebrijes & Black Pottery
We’ll spend the day with artisans who keep Oaxaca’s traditions alive.
First stop: San Martín Tilcajete, where fantastical alebrijes are carved and painted by hand — every detail a burst of color for your sketchbook.
Then on to San Bartolo Coyotepec, home of the famous black pottery, so glossy and deep it practically reflects your face back at you.
Our last night together calls for a farewell dinner at one of Oaxaca’s best restaurants. Expect good food, lots of laughter, and sketchbooks passed around the table one more time.
Tuesday, March 10: Farewell
Our last morning is wide open — one more coffee, a final sketch, or just sitting still and soaking it all in. Then it's hugs (maybe a few tears), and a sketchbook so full it might need its own boarding pass.
Meet Your Hosts
Antrese Wood helps artists cut through the noise and make the work they’re here to make — bold, honest, and unmistakably their own.
Before launching her coaching practice, she spent years working for the Mouse — leading creative teams as an art director at Disney — then walked away from all of it for a painting expedition across Argentina, from the deserts to the jungles to the glaciers at the edge of Patagonia. It began as a painting trip. It became a path back to herself.
Since then, she’s helped thousands of artists reconnect with their voice and create from a place of clarity, confidence, and deep personal truth. Through her membership, Growth Studio, and the long-running Savvy Painter podcast, she’s built a global community of working artists who are ready to stop second-guessing and start trusting what’s already in them.
Her coaching is direct, intuitive, and deeply grounded. She’s known for her loving no-BS approach — cutting through the fluff while holding space with real care. Her process blends mindset work, guided visualizations, and self-hypnosis to help artists move past old patterns and step fully into their creative power.
Gabriela Domville is an artist and teacher with deep roots in Oaxaca — and a gift for turning fragments into something soulful, playful, and alive.
Her work with collage, fabric, and found materials explores the space between beauty and impermanence. She’s drawn to that moment where things fall apart and come together — and it shows in everything she makes. Gabriela’s art has been exhibited at the San Diego Museum of Textile Art, the Athenaeum, and Escondido Arts Museum, and she was awarded the Denis Diderot Grant for a 2024 residency at Château d’Orquevaux in France. Several of her students have achieved top distinctions in the International Competition at the Beit Hatfutsot Museum.
She’s been leading creative workshops for over a decade. Her sessions are tactile, grounding, and quietly transformative — the kind that stay with you. With training in fashion design (Mexico City), ceramics (Florence), and fine art (San Diego), she brings both technical fluency and intuitive ease to her teaching.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Oaxaca was like her second home, Gabriela knows the city by heart. As co-leader of this retreat, she’ll help you experience it not as a tourist, but as a welcomed guest — discovering its textures, rituals, and everyday magic.
