Lyme —  Artists set up their easels around the sprawling property of Ashlawn Farm on Bill Hill Road Wednesday to paint the fields, stone walls and farm buildings under the August sun.

The 14 painters spent the week capturing the vistas of Old Lyme and Lyme under the guidance of landscape artist T. Allen Lawson as part of a Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts workshop, "Painting with a Purpose."

For some in the group, who came from as far as Colorado and California, this was their first time studying here. But it was familiar ground for their instructor.

Lawson, an alumnus of Lyme Academy who now lives in Maine, returned to his roots this week as the school’s artist in residence. An exhibit of his work is on display at the college on Lyme Street, Old Lyme, until Aug. 29.

“It’s thrilling to come back,” said Lawson, a Wyoming native who studied here in the ‘80s.

The students seemed equally thrilled.

"There's a painting everywhere you turn," said Don Hamilton of Colorado, as he painted the landscape of Tiffany Farm in Lyme on Wednesday.

Hamilton said he thought it was a great opportunity to study with Lawson, as well as visit places he has heard about while learning the history of the Lyme Art Colony, considered one of the key places in American Impressionism.

Students painted views of the Lieutenant River from behind the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme and the Connecticut River from Ely’s Ferry Road in Lyme.

They visited Cove Landing in Hamburg Cove, the Grassy Hill Congregational Church in Lyme as well as the two working farms, said Marguerite d'Aprile Quigley, director of the Center for Arts Programming at the academy, a college of the University of New Haven.

Carol and Chip Dahlke of Ashlawn Farm said they were happy to share the farm vistas with the artists. They have watched artists painting the Lyme landscapes since they moved to the farm in 1996.

The participants also visited local art institutions, including the Cooley Gallery and the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, and the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Quigley said.

Lawson fondly recalled his time at Lyme Academy. He said a small group of students would sing around the piano after gallery openings and Christmas parties at the academy’s Sill House.

He lived in a cottage by White Sand Beach that he rented with other students, and remembered sometimes coming home in the evening to find a fresh-baked pie left on the stoop.

As a young student, he would walk down Old Lyme’s streets, and people would recognize him.

“The community was very supportive,” he said, adding that the experience gave him the confidence to try new things.

On Wednesday, M.J. Brush, an artist from Stonington, said she was impressed with how Lawson teaches painting at a high level. “He’s been very generous with his knowledge,” she said.

As painters set up their easels at Tiffany Farm, Paul Wasson, from Massachusetts, said he took off a week from his ophthalmology practice to study with Lawson. He said he was learning artistic technique and appreciated the camaraderie.

“You’re with a bunch of other painters, and you learn a lot from the people you paint beside,” he said. 

Lawson said in the early years of his career he was concerned with capturing exactly what he saw in front of him, but he is now much more focused on the emotional connection with the subject matter.

He uses spackling, wire brushes and even credit cards as tools.

He stressed to the artists that they should focus on that connection, encouraging them to take time to ask themselves why they stopped at a certain point, rather than another, before coming up with the best way to craft the painting. 

Lawson's work has been featured at the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Denver Art Museum, according to a news release.

An exhibit of his work with artist Geoff Parker, called "Capturing the Missouri: Lewis and Clark Revisited," was shown at Lyme Academy in 2005.

Lawson also designed a Christmas card in 2008 for former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush that shows the view of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial from the Truman Balcony at the White House, according to a press release from the academy.

K.drelich@theday.com

Twitter: @KimberlyDrelich