Hello everyone and a very happy start to April to you all.

This week, I got so inspired by a primrose explosion in our French garden that painted four pieces at once! The colours are so incredibly beautiful and they are everywhere!

But it’s not just painting in an art studio.

With our move back to the UK, I have loads of paintings to pack. I'm also gearing up for three open studios including live workshops as part of them, an art fair, and a solo exhibition before June. In between packing and brush cleaning, I paint like crazy to celebrate Spring! My new pieces aren't finished yet, but they will be soon! Easter Open Studio is coming up fast and I’m hosting an fantastically creative and fun Egg Decorating Workshop for Easter Saturday and would absolutely love to see you there.

Whether you are old or young, experienced or a complete beginner - there will be something for everyone.

ALL MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT PROVIDED AND YOU GET TO TAKE AWAY YOUR CREATION!

In this episode,  @helenalicejohnsonartist  talk about my Free online workshop, available by contacting me either through my website or by arranging a short meeting with me to very kindly answer some questions I have about online learning in general. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Book a meeting with me through this link here https://calendly.com/helenjohnsonartist. Other news - I have now finished my oil landscape painting of the view from Whitfield Fell looking over Alston. It will be featured as part of my solo exhibition in St Andrew's Church in Corbridge this June 6th through to the 15th so please come to see it if you can.

In this episode, I show my featured artwork, an oil painting of Embleton Bay in Northumberland with Dunstanburgh Castle in the background, and talk through how I made it and what inspired me. It is called 'Wander Often, Wonder Always' and will be shown at my exhibition 'Our Beautiful World' this June at St Andrews Church in Corbridge, Northumberland. I am also offering a free online workshop to anyone who would like to help me with a bit of market research into my online classes. In exchange for a 15 minute chat with me I am giving you a free individual online class that you can keep and re watch as often as you want. Behind the scenes this week shows the progress I have made with my latest oil on canvas painting of a view from Whitfield Fell in Northumberland, looking over Alston Moor in Cumbria. My tip of the week this week focuses on the importance of the sketchbook and finally I advise anyone thinking of buying original art work to wherever possible buy local. That's all from me for the week, other than to say that if you want to see my work in the 'flesh' so to speak, I am currently exhibiting at Gallery North West in Brampton and Percy House Gallery in Cockermouth. Please call in to see my work and some fabulous work by many other amazing artists at the same time.

A brand new look for 2025, my usual video blog but a bit different. I hope you will enjoy the format and I would love to hear your feedback in the comments below please. Each week will now be sectioned into Featured art work - this week focussing on my painting 'Breathe' mixed media on canvas and a seascape of the North East Coast using the Triquetra symbol from Sacred Geometry as my underpainting. Bargain of the week - I am offering a staggering 50% discount on all my Small Paintings from my website. If you are interested, please message me and I'll set you up with a code to access the discount. Tips, techniques and tutorials - I show how to use a large brush to make small marks Behind the scenes - my latest painting on the easel with another elaborate pattern as an underpainting is underway. Curator's Corner - a cheeky tip for collectors - only buy what you love! And then finally What's On - you can see my paintings 'in the flesh' in two galleries in the North of England at the moment. Percy House Gallery in Cockermouth and Gallery North West in Brampton both have a stock of my work for you to see. Please check them out if you are in the area

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.