Walking around Monhegan Island and Harpswell on a sunny Maine day, Hati Modr sees images just begging to be drawn: Boats leaning up against the back of a shed in early morning light, shadows of an old store behind the Island Inn, purple hues on a dock.

Inspired by sunlight and the shadows it casts, Modr’s images reflect harmony, balance and an abstract quality.

“The excitement is in discovering these scenes when the light dazzles and to be there observing in that moment,” she said in a press release. “Such a surprise to turn a corner and see a ‘painting’ with the light just so, blues of sky and sea, the old buildings where fishermen lived and worked the water. I grab my pencil and start drawing.”

An exhibition of Modr’s oil paintings will be available for viewing throughout May. A reception will take place from 5-7 p.m. Friday, May 11; Bob Modr’s Trio will play classic jazz during the event.

Painting is done in Modr’s studio in Harpswell — in one of the oldest houses — with windows on the east, south and west sides. Sunlight floods through the south window and she returns at the same time of day when painting a still life.

Modr has been drawing and painting since she was a child, and music has been an important part of her life, attending the New England Conservatory. She seriously returned to studying art at the University of Maine at Orono with Michael Lewis in 1976. She studied watercolor painting with Viola Lyman, oil with Alfred Chadbourn and the Renaissance technique with Alex Gnidziejko. In England she studied sculpture with Jane Hamilton. A graduate of the Baldwin School, she completed her Associate Art Degree at the University of Maine-Augusta.

Her paintings are in collections in the United States, England, France, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

A working member of the Stable Gallery in Damariscotta, Modr views the arts as “a way to create community, bringing people together to view art and make it.”

“In this busy world,” she said in a press release, “the quiet energy and intense focus of the process of painting invokes an island of calm and preserves scenes of the Maine coast.”

Modr has taught “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” and currently teaches oil painting . Her gallery is The Blue Door in Harpswell.