After arriving in Oaxaca City, our driver will meet you at the airport and take you to the hotel. Take some time to settle before we meet for a welcome mezcal at our hotel's rooftop.

We will then head out for dinner at one of the finest restaurants in the city, where we'll sample modern interpretations of Oaxacan cuisine using local ingredients and toast to the wonderful week ahead of us.

Our day begins with breakfast at a lovely terrace overlooking the city, where we’ll enjoy coffee and hot chocolate alongside traditional Oaxacan dishes, fruit, and pan dulce. After this, we’ll make our way to our first painting location, a beautiful local house in the the outskirts of the city, overlooking the surrounding mountains. Here, in this serene backdrop, we will be learning the basics of watercolor from Jan Heaton: brushes, tools, and paper, and warming up our painting skills by creating abstract bold marks and testing color mixes.

For lunch, we're off to eat at the celebrated restaurant of a woman chef who serves a mix of traditional dishes and her own amazing creations. Then, take the rest of the afternoon to rest or explore the city.

We'll meet again this evening for a variety of appetizers, which include a memorable suckling pig taco, while we enjoy panoramic views of the city at the terrace of an upscale restaurant.

On our way to the Sunday open-air market of Tlacolula is the town of Santa María del Tule, home to the widest tree on earth. There, we will kick-off our day with a traditional Oaxacan breakfast at a popular eatery that serves incredible chilaquiles, huevos rancheros and enchiladas before visiting El Tule tree. Afterwards, we’ll drive to the village of Tlacolula where all kinds of vendors from all over Oaxaca come to sell everything from live turkeys and fresh produce to fabrics and bootlegged dvd's. We'll spend some time there, exploring and shopping before we make our way to the town of Teotitlán del Valle, a small town where we’ll visit the house of a family known for their beautiful beeswax candle creations. For lunch, we'll enjoy a traditional Zapotec feast at the private home of a cocinera tradicional (traditional cook).

After lunch, we’ll return to the hotel so you can enjoy some well-deserved rest. Once again, we'll reconvene later in the evening and head out to sample a true Oaxacan street food: tlayudas (a tlayuda is a 12” round semi-crispy tortilla with various toppings or fillings) at a very local and lively street stand.

Our day will start with breakfast at one of our favorite market stands, where we’ll enjoy a variety of Oaxacan comfort dishes like enfrijoladas, entomatadas, salsa de huevo, and empanadas de flor. Then, we'll make our way back to Teotitlán del Valle for our second painting session with Jan Heaton. Our location will be the house of a renowned rug-weaving family, where we’ll also learn about their art and natural dyes. Using the natural Oaxacan palette as inspiration, our second painting session will focus on creating repetitive abstract patterns that reflect the colors we experience. The group will further explore color mixing and create small studies with bold, rich pigments and a minimum palette.

Later, we will enjoy an incredible homemade lunch in the garden of our painting location, lovingly prepared by the rug-weaving family who so warmly shared their beautiful house with us to paint. After a full day of painting and food, we’ll make our way back to the hotel. The rest of the evening will be yours to rest or explore the city at your own pace, maybe with a mezcal cocktail (or two) at a rooftop bar.

Today will be all about Oaxacan ingredients, learning about them, and understanding how to use them not only in your own cooking back at home, but as creative inspiration. Our day will start with breakfast at a popular eatery that specializes in all things corn, including their beverages, where everything is made to order using heirloom varieties of corn. We'll then make our way to a residential market nearby to shop for ingredients for our cooking session. Our culinary workshop will be led by James Beard Award winning chef Iliana de la Vega at the gorgeous home and kitchen of world-renowned photographer Marcela Taboada. While our lunch is cooking, we'll also learn how to make traditional Oaxacan cheeses guided by Rosa María, who comes from a family of cheesemakers.

After lunch, we’ll return to the hotel, which will serve as our third and final painting location. Using their beautiful nature-filled courtyard as our relaxing background and inspired by the delicious food we cooked together, we will paint impressions of the fruits and vegetables of Oaxaca. We will also summarize all we have learned from this color journey.

After a full day of activities, we will relax with a candlelit mezcal tasting following our painting session and finish our day with a variety of traditional Oaxacan tamales, from mole to salsa verde and even a dessert tamal, from our favorite local street cart.

Our last day will begin with breakfast at the tranquil courtyard of a boutique hotel. Then, we will visit some surrounding villages to explore a few local arts and crafts of Oaxaca. We'll first stop by an alebrije workshop in the town of San Martin Tilcajete, where an artisan will show us the process of bringing the wooden figurines to life. Next stop will be Santo Tomás Jalieza to visit a family of women weavers who use the backstrap looms to create gorgeous, intricate pieces like table runners. Our last stop before lunch will be in San Bartolo Coyotepec to see the unique black pottery original from this town.

Then, we’ll return to the city for a lunch of traditional food from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—a completely different cuisine from another one of the eight regions of Oaxaca—at the private home of a local cook. After lunch, you'll have some time to relax or enjoy your last day in Oaxaca on your own before we meet again for our farewell dinner.

Our final dinner will be at the gorgeous modern space of two incredible and world-renowned chefs who are putting their minds together to create new flavors using traditional Oaxacan ingredients.

After a week of exploring and eating your way through Oaxaca, it's time to head back home with a head full of memories and perhaps a couple of bottles of mezcal. Our driver will pick you up from the hotel and take you to the airport. You may depart early in the morning or enjoy breakfast at the hotel beforehand.