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.

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