A small, but striking collection of Island landscapes by Warren Gaines, now on view at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center, offers a rare off-season chance to enjoy the Edgartown painter’s work. With two pastels and four oils, Mr. Gaines captures the Vineyard in a variety of moods and scenes, with a lifelong Islander’s eye for detail.

In the oil Full Moon Rising Over Katama Bay, moonlight brightens the deep greens of bushes and marsh grasses. In a pastel of the Edgartown Yacht Club a hint of bright blue sky shows through the gray and white clouds billowing above the harborfront. Whitecaps escort the sailing yacht Magic Carpet as she cruises past the Edgartown Lighthouse with Chappaquiddick in the background.

“I love the water’s edge,” said Mr. Gaines, whose day job is as Edgartown’s shellfish constable.

Glassy calm water is a favorite, Mr. Gaines added, and most of his paintings at the film center show the Vineyard in peaceful moods. In the oil Gay Head Reflective Light Sunset, a few white-crested waves approach the curve of the beach beneath the colorful cliffs.

In Overlooking Menemsha, watery images ripple gently from the hulls of fishing boats. “I love reflections,” Mr. Gaines said.

Mr. Gaines spends his days as Edgartown's shellfish constable. — Mark Alan Lovewell

Painted in late 2012, the pastel Lucy Vincent Cliffs Exposed is a high-tide view of what remained of the cliff after Hurricane Sandy laid waste to Island shores that fall. The slumped crag, soon to collapse around its cave, seems to huddle in dread against the rest of the bluff, as white water seethes around it and endless rollers approach under an inky sky. He picked this painting for the film center show, Mr. Gaines said, because the Chilmark town-owned Lucy Vincent Beach is open to the public over the winter.

“This time of year, the year-rounders actually get to go there, and they remember the cliff before it got chewed to pieces,” Mr. Gaines. “It just fell apart.”

From May to October, Mr. Gaines and his wife, photographer and painter Debra Gaines, sell their artwork at the Vineyard Artisan Festivals in West Tisbury and the Chilmark flea market. His brother Dana Gaines is also a well-known Island artist.

Yet for most of his life, despite an early interest in art, Mr. Gaines did not pursue it until about 15 years ago, he said. His wife convinced him to “pick it up again,” he said.

“I started at Featherstone, taking classes, and then I took some courses off-Island at Rhode Island School of Design,” Mr. Gaines said. After years of specializing in pastels, he’s now working in oils as well.

The exhibit is a collaboration with Featherstone Center for the Arts and continues through Feb. 23 at the film center. It is open during movie times, Wednesday through Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Gaines have an online gallery at debragaines.com, and a home studio open by appointment.