Jacqueline White of Glastonbury works on her watercolor on the banks of the Eightmile River in Lyme’s Pleasant Valley Preserve on April 27 during the Third Annual Lyme Paintout.

Art lovers who were unable to take in the exhibit of a collection of more than 50 fresh new paintings of Lyme’s landscape at the New London’s Lyman Allyn Art Museum will have another chance when it moves to the Lyme Art Association in Old Lyme.

The exhibition, “Celebrating Lyme’s Beauty,” has moved to the Lyme Art Association (LAA), where it will be open to the public from July 6 through Sept 1.

There will be a special opening reception tonight, Friday, July 12, from 6 to 8 p.m.  The LAA is able to offer a Special Tax-Free Day beginning with the reception this evening and ending at 5 p.m. on July 13, so this is a wonderful time to shop for a painting for your home or for a gift.

All the paintings in the exhibition were produced by artists who participated in the Annual Lyme Paintout on April 27 of this year, which is the result of a special partnership developed between three local organizations that all have strong ties to the landscapes of Southeastern Connecticut.

Every spring since 2011, the Lyme Land Trust has welcomed artists onto one of its preserves for a plein air “paint-out,” inspired by one of the landscape paintings in the Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s permanent collection.

The paint-out artists are then invited to enter their completed works into a juried competition. The winners’ works are displayed first at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, then at the Lyme Art Association, where some are offered for sale to the public.

The paint-out idea originated three years ago as a way to link the Lyman Allyn’s Lyme Impressionist paintings with the real landscapes that inspired them a century ago.  The project celebrates the region’s history as a mecca for artists, as well as Lyme Land Trust’s efforts to preserve these ecologically and culturally significant landscapes in perpetuity.

This year was the biggest ever for the “Celebrating Lyme’s Beauty” paint-out and exhibition.

The 2013 paint-out attracted dozens of artists from as far away as New Jersey and Massachusetts to paint scenes in Lyme’s Pleasant Valley, where a network of public lands (owned by the Town of Lyme, The Nature Conservancy, and the Lyme Land Trust) allows visitors to hike for miles through woodlands and meadows along the Eight Mile River and up Mount Archer.

Fifty-five artworks were selected by Lyman Allyn Curator Nancy Stula for this year’s exhibition to represent Lyme’s Pleasant Valley.

For more information, visit www.LymanAllyn.org, www.LymeArtAssociation.org, or www.LymeLandTrust.org for more information.