EDITORIAL LISTING: This listing was prepared by the AtelierBound editorial team using publicly available information. Dates, availability, final pricing, and any options such as occupancy or materials should be confirmed directly with the host before making any plans. If you run this retreat, contact us at hosts@atelierbound.com to claim your listing and take full control of your page, add your own photographs, and respond to guest enquiries. From 8 to 16 January 2027, across Mexico City and the colonial lakeside town of Valle de Bravo, botanical illustrator Marjorie Leggitt leads an eight-night field journaling and watercolour trip built around the annual monarch butterfly migration. The week begins in Mexico City with the National Anthropology Museum and a hands-on Mexican cooking class, then moves to Valle de Bravo for a sequence of plein air sessions: quick sketching at a rustic ranch amongst horses, architectural rendering in a Mexican hacienda, atmospheric perspective at the Carmel Maranatha monastery outside Valle de Bravo, and a full day sketching inside the Piedra Herrada butterfly sanctuary. Reaching the monarch colonies means a high-altitude hike between roughly 2,700 and 3,500 metres, with horses available as an alternative to the full walk. The tour closes with a stop at the Cosmovitral in Toluca, an art nouveau botanical garden set beneath 3,500 square metres of stained glass. Group capped at fourteen; art supplies are guest-provided.

Website Link

https://linesandlat.com/trip1?utm_source=atelierbound&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=listing

What's Included

8 nights' accommodation in boutique hotels, 8 breakfasts, 6 lunches and 5 dinners, all art instruction and folding chair for plein air sessions, hands-on Mexican cooking class with drinks, entry fees and local guides, naturalist presentation, horseback ride to the monarch butterfly sanctuary, all transport in a passenger van, airport transfers

What to Bring

Your own watercolour and sketching supplies (a recommended supply list is sent ahead of the trip); a small daypack for water and personal items on hike days

Leader Bio

Marjorie Leggitt is an award-winning science illustrator and educator based in Bellingham, Washington, whose illustration and digital art appears in professional publications, museums and commercial products. She taught botanical illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens School for 35 years and continues to run remote foundation courses and in-person plein air workshops for students around the world.