Jeffrey Watts, a painter of still life, figure, landscape and seascapes, works in an expressionist style similar to that of Nicolai Fechin, whom the artist admires. Watts originally planned to be a professional cyclist, but he was sidelined from that goal because of bodily injury.

He enrolled for two years at the California Art Institute in Los Angeles where Fred Fixler was an influential teacher. He also spent eight months painting in the Caribbean during the day and bartending at night, worked for two years as a freelance illustrator in Hollywood, and then studied with his father, Robert Watts, a trained illustrator who also enjoyed plein-air painting---an activity he shared with his son;.

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