Bio

Betsy Jones McDonald
Artist Bio


Betsy Jones McDonald has loved painting and drawing as long as she can remember. Betsy received her formal art training at Columbus State University. Her eye for design was put to work as a design manager in her years working in advertising and visual merchandising.


In the early 1990's, she began doing murals for schools, businesses and private residences around Columbia, S.C., which is when McDonald realized her true love lay in large-format painting. She’s pursued oil-on-canvas as her preferred medium ever since. She paints using only the primary colors, (red, yellow and blue), along with white, and custom mixes all of the colors in her paintings.
Betsy co-founded Island Art Gallery in 2009. The gallery, although, no longer owned by McDonald, is still open Monday- Saturday and McDonald regularly teaches "Color Theory Workshops" there. You can find her paintings exhibited at Island Art Gallery in Pawleys Island, S.C. Perspective Gallery in Mt Pleasant, S.C., Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, S.C. and Charleston Artist Guild Gallery in Charleston, S.C.


McDonald now lives on Daniel Island where her studio overlooks the marsh, and provides an endless source of inspiration. “I love the colors of the marsh, and the way they change with the seasons and the tides,” she says. “Every time you look at the marsh, you see something different, and I’m fascinated by that.”