This week I have been travelling from Cumbria to Northern France, with a little bit of baby sitting in between! I started the week getting about 11 paintings gallery ready for an exhibition at Gallery North West, Brampton, Cumbria - which runs from 1st March through to 15th April. Then, never ones to stand still, we headed off down south to do a spot of baby sitting and leaf pattern making before crossing the channel over to France, where I am going to be doing lots of painting, including my 'Painting The Spring Landscape' course which starts 5th March at 7pm UK time - there is still time to join if you're interested, just hop over to my website and look at Art Classes then Enrol in Art Classes.

A week of galleries in New York to sketchbook work on Alston Moor. The life of an artist is nothing if not varied! I visit the Whitney Museum of American Art as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art not to mention Central Park in all its glory! And then back to my studio in Alston and a beautiful stormy morning on Alston Moor. I also mention at the very end my Online painting classes Painting the Spring Landscape, which starts on March 4th.

This week I visit Percy House Gallery in Cockermouth where several of my large landscape paintings, smaller abstract paintings as well as limited edition and open edition giclee prints are exhibited. I am delighted to have been accepted by Percy House Gallery as one of their artists and look forward to working with them moving forward. I have also finished my final seascape painting this week, in oil and recycled plastic, which I collected from beach combing the very same beach that is depicted in the painting. Despite being a Blue Flag beach, sadly there is still plastic to be found on the beach and so I use this in my paintings as a way of highlighting the issue of plastics in Our Beautiful World. This week coming, I am visiting New York, and the Guggenheim, to see the Hilma Af Klint exhibition, which I am hugely excited about!

I haven’t managed to catch up on any painting this week as I have been travelling back to the UK from France, and have been busy collecting paintings from across the country in readiness for my Open Studio over the Easter weekend.

Additionally I have also delivered my first live painting workshop - Sip and Paint with all proceeds going to Steeple Aston Pre School. It was a great evening with fabulous people and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. The standard of finished paintings was mind blowing - I could not be more proud!

In this video I show how to apply plastic to a canvas and how I use beach combed plastics in my paintings as well as how I add sand from the beach at the Northumberland coast to create my seascape oil on canvas paintings. I also use sacred geometric patterns as underpaintings, which I then paint over the top with my seascapes inspired by Tynemouth and Newbiggin by the Sea as well as Hartley Bay on the North East Coast of England.

Here’s my second week video / blog for 2025  @helenalicejohnsonartist  I’m in my French studio and working on four seascape paintings of the NE Coast above Newcastle.

Watch this video to see some of my sketchbook preparatory work as well as information about the Sacred Geometry that underpins my under paintings. You’ll see I’ve also done a bit of up-cycling in one of our upstairs bedrooms.

#sacredgeometry #upcycling #landscapeartist #seascapes #seascapepainting

In this video @helenalicejohnsonartist I show a small glimpse into my online painting classes. I practiced on my husband Ian, who hasn't picked up a paint brush in 50 years! This shows that my classes are suitable for all abilities so if you have a New Year’s Resolution to give more time to yourself, to be creative, to allow yourself some thinking time, then hop over to my website to find out more. https://www.helenalicejohnsonartist.com There are pre recorded classes available on my website and the next live online classes is Painting the Spring Landscape which starts on 5th March at 7pm UK time. Then fortnightly for the next 5 sessions. Each session is one hour long. And on the subject of New Year’s Resolutions, mine this year is to go all out for my exhibition Our Beautiful World, which shows at St Andrews Church in Corbridge in June, which is why this video did not come out at the beginning of January as it usually does. I have been frantically painting! But you get to see a glimpse of that here. And now I am off to send my annual application to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Fingers crossed and see you next week!

This week I started in my studio in Northern France and travelled back with paintings on board. Three of these were then delivered to the R Young Gallery in Wokingham before I called in at Oxford for a look around the Ashmolean. The Islamic section was particularly inspiring for me and this wooden door uses the same Islamic pattern as I use in my most recent paintings that are in the R Young Gallery in Wokingham. As usual I got lots done, and I am looking forward to getting back to my art studio in Cumbria, where I will be delivering my Online painting class this Wednesday - Painting a Winter Landscape. Check out my website at www.helenalicejohnsonartist.com for details of this amazing painting class bundle over October and November.

This week I took a break from my studio and headed down to the South of France on a bit of a Van Gogh Art tour.  It was fascinating to see how little of an impact Van Gogh had on Arles, whilst some of his most amazing paintings come from there.  If you know some of Van Gogh’s paintings, it is hard not to see his paintings in every building! They all look like Van Gogh art work to me. 

It was brilliant to see the site of ‘The Yellow House’, where he painted and lived with Gaugin in Arles.  Unfortunately, the house was bombed during the second world war, but the background buildings are still there, so it’s easy to imagine the two inspirational painters living their life out in this beautiful part of the South of France.  And the colours are amazing – beautiful light and soft stone.

The Romans also thought so, and there is far more to see regarding the Roman architecture, including a stunning Roman amphitheatre, where Van Gogh painted his painting ‘Spectators in the Arena At Arles’. 

And one of my particular favourites is ‘The Café Terrace at Night’ and again, in viewing seeing this in real life, it looks just like a Van Gogh painting!