About the Artist

Brittany Johnson

Brittany “BeeJay” Johnson is a Virginia Beach based artist whose work reveals the luminous beauty hidden in shadow. A Signature Member of the International Society of Scratchboard Artists and is working towards becoming a Master, she is best known for her intricate, glowing scratchboard works that merge natural history with mythic storytelling. Each piece begins as a panel of solid black ink into which she etches thousands of hair‑fine lines revealing the white clay beneath occasionally Layering translucent inks and metallic accents, she transforms these scratches into vivid textures—liquid honey, breathing waves, glowing feathers, or eyes that seem to look back.

Her journey began in high school, when she left band in 11th grade to take her first formal art class. From then on, she carried paints, markers, and journals everywhere, immersing herself in every medium she could try. After earning her BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008, she pursued painting—creating abstract works, then evolving into landscapes, seascapes, and animal studies, all tied by her lifelong fascination with nature. In 2011, she revisited scratchboard to create a dog portrait for a friend’s wedding gift. What began as a commission quickly grew into her passion. By 2018 she dedicated her practice entirely to scratchboard, exploring its depth with innovative tools like microblading needles, slice blades, and fine brushes, and continually pushing its boundaries through color and technique.

Johnson’s work is rooted in series that combine ecology, archetype, and storytelling. Her ongoing Primordial Daughters cycle personifies elemental forces—earth, water, fire, air, and spirit—through feminine figures such as the “Goddess of Honey and Shadow.” Alongside this series, she creates marine studies, avian portraits, and dragon‑eye works like Augenfeuer, all reflecting her love of thresholds: shimmer and shadow, fragility and ferocity, myth and realism.

She has exhibited at regional and national venues including Virginia MOCA, the Charles Taylor Center for the Arts, and Art Everywhere in Norfolk, and her work appears in juried outdoor shows such as Bethesda Row Arts Festival, the Virginia MOCA Boardwalk Art Show, Stockley Gardens Art Show, and Arts in the Park (Richmond, VA). In 2023 she was selected as one of 40 artists for judging in the Boardwalk Art Show and received the 2‑D Judge’s Choice Award at Festival in the Park in Charlotte, NC.

A dedicated arts leader, Johnson is an Active Member and past president of the Chesapeake Bay Art Association, where she has helped organize the Ocean View Art Show and raised funds for student scholarships. She teaches beginner scratchboard masterclasses at the Virginia Beach Art Center and has also led workshops through CBAA and Virginia MOCA as well as Masterclasses to the Students at the Visual and Preforming Arts Academy encouraging others to discover the expressive possibilities of the medium.

Her commissioned pet portraits have become a cherished part of her practice. For Johnson, capturing the likeness of a beloved animal goes beyond representation—it’s about memorializing relationships and offering something deeply personal. “If the customer doesn’t cry when they see their finished portrait,” she often says, “then I didn’t do a good enough job.”

Beyond her studio, Brittany homeschools her three children with the support of her husband, Zach, and balances her creative career with part‑time work as an assistant for an insurance broker. She loves baking, reading books about magic and fantasy, and exploring the outdoors—whether hiking with her family, disc golfing, or walking the beaches of coastal Virginia.

Her work, shared as MadeByBeeJayArt, continues to grow in technical mastery and reach. Collectors and audiences alike remark on the glow and depth of her pieces, often encountering scratchboard for the first time through her art. For Johnson, each incised line is a way of drawing with light itself, revealing the beauty that emerges when patience, attention, and imagination meet.