Brad Betts Exhibition: Blue Skies & Shimmering Seas

On View June 20 – July 20, 2025

Blue Skies, Shimmering Seas

Presenting Blue Skies, Shimmering Seas, a luminous five-year journey through Santa Barbara as seen through the eyes of celebrated marine artist Brad Betts. A Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists, Betts brings his East Coast mastery to the California coastline with a series of plein air paintings that capture the region’s radiant light, lush gardens, and iconic architecture.

Blue Skies, Shimmering Seas returns on Friday, June 20 with a special offering of the most recent en plein air paintings by Brad Betts, inspired by the Preview Weekend’s events.

From golden-hour coastlines to sunlit bougainvillea, Betts’s plein air paintings evoke the rhythm, beauty, and soul of the American Riviera.

On View June 20 – July 20, 2025

Mosteiros, Sao Miguel, Azores

These works of art were created en plein air, from a grassy bluff overlooking Atlantic breakers crashing on the black lava rocks of the Azorean shoreline of Mosteiros.

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Mosteiros, acrylics on loose canvas, 12”x12”, brad betts, asma

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“The churning sea
like a glass
turquoise bottle
tipped with white blooms,
waving and rolling
in an open field
of blue
broken by black ledges,
twisted and sharp diffusers,
round and swirling
where the molten memory remains.

Warming skin,
soft tickle of loose tendrils,
quick touchdown
of a small fly.
The chill of a shadow
cast by the crater’s windward clouds.
Lumps and bumps,
a bed of grass
on a path
worn down by many travelers.

A ceaseless roar,
birdsong,
doors slamming,
tourist chatter.
Languages you understand
when your eyes are closed.
The twinkling
of paint brushes
spun clean,
the turquoise of the sea
left behind,
captured in a glass bottle.”

— Danielle Betts

Morning Walks

The weather has warmed on Ocean Point. Our brisk morning walks are now slower paced as we stop to enjoy the season’s first beach roses, chat with summer visitors, or paint a surf study to capture the turquoise color of a breaking wave on an overcast day.

Marsh Study

Marsh Study by Brad Betts. Music excerpt from the song “Groceries” by Ben Betts, @benbettsmusic from the album REVELING.

Painting by Brad Betts | Music by Ben Betts To hear the original song "Groceries" and the entire album REVELING by Ben Betts, visit: https://www.downeastgallery.com/music

Blueberry Pie

I wanted Maine blueberry pie… so I painted it!

The Stable

The old stable below the barn. Experimenting with watercolors this winter and tried to capture timelessness in this sketch - the abandoned bird’s nest in the rafters, old bit on the wall, stacks of lumber leaning below the gate - offset by the present, in the freshly made footsteps in the snow and the cast of the mid-day sun’s shadows.

First Storm, Winter 2019

“Surf in Winter Storm”, 9x12 watercolor by Brad Betts, ASMA

America and the Sea

“Camden Harbor” has been selected for the America and the Sea exhibition at The Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport.

April 29 – June 18, 2017

The Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT

https://www.mysticseaport.org/event/modern-maritime-masters-america-and-the-sea-exhibition-and-sale/

National Maritime Show: AT SEA

“Morning on Monhegan, 1898” has been selected for a national maritime show at the Copley Society of Art. Juried by John Stobart and Russell Jinishian.

May 20 – July 6, 2017

COPLEY SOCIETY OF ART, Upper Gallery, 158 Newbury Street, Boston, MA

http://www.copleysociety.org/exhibition/sea