Stepping inside Kanta Lipsky’s new exhibition, “Local Influence,” is like walking outdoors. Her richly colored oil Vineyard landscapes are handsomely hung in the Playhouse Art Space through Oct. 25.

“This painting exhibit has been inspired by the simple beauty of our island home,” says Lipsky. “The way light streaks long over the afternoon fields, purple shadows on snow, and exuberant cherry blossoms in spring all help to inform these works.”

Lipsky’s father, a graphic artist, inspired her creativity at a young age. Before moving to the Vineyard full-time, she played with watercolors, but found the medium challenging. Lipsky began to pursue painting more seriously about 20 years ago when she moved here year-round.

“I started taking classes at Featherstone. They had some wonderful teachers. I also experimented on my own, teaching myself.” Fifteen years ago, she began painting outside, co-founding the MV Plein Aire group with Valentine Estabrook.

Lipsky finds working in nature quite an adventure. “It’s the excitement of the invention of going out and not knowing what you’re going to find. You have to gather your resources because you have the bugs, landscape, wind, and sun. You don’t know what elements there are going to be. It’s different from painting in the studio with your hot cup of coffee.”

“I feel integrated with the landscape when I’m out,” she continues. “The way the shadow cools me where I’m sitting. My feet are on the ground. The fragrance in the air. It all contributes. Of course, it’s about watching the light change, which is the big deal about Plein Aire painting.”

Lipsky selects locations that she knows and loves. Images of the Vineyard’s lovely views abound with those from Polly Hill, Priester’s Pond, Sepiessa Point Preserve, and Ghost Island Farm.

Looking around, you will notice that Lipsky primarily paints nature without human structures. “It’s more soothing for my eye. Also, it’s timeless.” Describing what makes a good scene, Lipsky says, “I think the best ones are when there is bright sunlight and dark shadows that make a more interesting painting. To make it jump out at you.”

Through the skillful use of color and composition, Lipsky conveys the essence of every season with works depicting summer, winter, spring, and fall.

Painting in Plein Aire is quite the undertaking. It can take a while for her to hike to the location carrying a chair, umbrella, easel, canvas, paints, turpentine, brushes, and a palette knife. Once she has selected a spot, setting up can take 15 minutes or more. “You have to get everything just right. Then I stay for about 2 hours or so.”

Although the shadows might be in a particular place when Lipsky begins, she can change her mind as the light moves because something gets revealed or the shadow has changed, making for, she explains, “Something more juicy, more interesting about it.”

With limited time to capture a scene, Lipsky sometimes paints wet-on-wet layers of pigment. In this technique, called alla prima, the trick is to avoid having your colors bleed into one another. But she explains that you can use a rag to wipe pigment off if you don’t like what you get.

Lipsky also takes photographs on her phone or notes about the colors she sees to finish the work in the studio. “You get to a point where you don’t want to put the bright colors in until everything is dry because it will just turn dull.”

Many of the images in the show are handsomely framed. But of late, with the dearth of framers available on Island, Lipsky has begun to continue the composition on the sides of her canvases, so they transition into three-dimensional objects standing out a bit from the wall.

Regarding plans for the future, she is intrigued by famous masters who would start a painting and then come back each day at the same time so they could finish their work with the light in the same place. “Another thing I’d like to try is going around to different areas on the Vineyard and painting them in four seasons,” she tells me.

Lipsky hopes we will come away from “Local Influence” with an appreciation of color and a closer eye for observing nature and the play of light. And indeed, walking out of the exhibition, Lipsky’s art makes us more keenly attentive to the subtlety of the world around us.