I checked in with West Boothbay Harbor artist Hilary Bartlett last week to see what she’s been up to while sheltering in place. And I can tell you this: She’s been traveling … with imagination as her road map and her art the destination.

Since completing her first book, “The Thistle Inn, A Wee Bit of Scotland in Maine,” being published in the near future by North Country Press, it was time to get back to that array of colored inks, acrylics and watercolors … the texture-inducing bubble and Saran wraps, greaseproof paper, and other assorted materials.

“I have to say, in a crisis like this, I really do thank my lucky stars I’m creative. It’s an escape mechanism,” Bartlett said in that fab Liverpool accent. “I can lose myself in something without fretting about what the hell’s going on. And ‘Serenity’ was certainly an escapist painting and collage for me.”

“Serenity” is an escape for us, too. It all came together in her kitchen-cum-studio, over about two weeks. To get her painting groove back on, Bartlett chose to paint familiar, historic subjects: the Hesper and Luther Little. She’d painted the historic abandoned schooners in Wiscasset many times before, but this time she was going for a dramatic sky.

“I was going to do an ink pour, but it’s like playing the piano: If you don’t do it all the time, you lose the rhythm, you find yourself just squeezing bottles of color onto the paper, tipping it, throwing down leaves, string … If you’re not subconsciously ‘in the groove’ … it’s just rubbish!” she explained breaking into that infectious laughter.

OK. Now what? Rummaging through work and practice pieces stored in her back room-studio, currently at a temperature completely too chill to work in, she was able to put her hands on a few works to work with.

First to be uncovered was a nature watercolor of mountains and a river moving through a ravine below. But the river was a tad underwhelming. She continued poking about and discovered some practice pieces, which, lo and behold, revealed mountains created through an ink pour over shrink wrap. Mountains – check. River – check; all she had to do was tear the river in the first painting into bits.

Returning to her kitchen-studio, “Serenity” began to take shape mounted on a new Bristol board-like paper. Bartlett painted a new shimmery gold sky above those mountains and added those river strips. The cool thing: As dark green rivulets on the left side of this collage, they have texture. And it was achieved by means of an ink pour over Saran Wrap that formed bubbles and creases.

The overall effect of “Serenity” is delightfully surreal. You just can’t help but wonder what experiences would be had visiting such a landscape. “They don’t sell in the Maine market, But I love doing that stuff.”

The “Monuments” collage has a really Southwest vibe about it – another of her intriguing, not-your-traditional-landscape works. For this one, she used greaseproof paper and colored inks to create textures – like the striations in the three “boots” on the upper right. These lighter areas are the result of inks a-bubblin’ up.

And check this out: Bartlett created “Monuments” before her trip to Egypt (that’s one tick on the bucket list!) last November. “If you look to the left of center, there’s a black rock – with an image of a pharaoh. It was just there. I added little black lines and, I think, one more knuckle near the arch on the center … You start to see things once you get going … It asks the viewer to explore.”

While “Monuments” took her “ages to do,” “Tide Pools” was completed in a matter of days.

“I guess I was on a roll after ‘Monuments’ (insert that great laughter again). I mostly put down greaseproof paper on same sort of Bristol board. And then I began seeing these shapes … rocks .. and fish – very stylized fish (a bubble wrap ink pour). There was such fabulous texture all over it. I can just play for hours.”

The movement of the water through the use of the white ink, the rocks below the water… and what looks like a mama fish instructing her school of babies about the day’s activities … Perhaps these will include how to hide from sharks … and excitable, easily confused blue tang fish …

Bartlett’s energy and excitement for her art come through in person – and on the phone. You can hear it in her voice and you can just see this endlessly fascinating scientist-artist – literally and figuratively: She holds a doctorate in phytoplankton physiology and biochemistry – surrounded by paints and materials on the floor, the table, the walls … throwing things at the canvas … digging up lace, or string or leaves for those fun ink pours …

“My kitchen was totally trashed when I did these paintings. “I’m a very, very messy painter. (More laughter) I do not do things delicately … I get excited. I’m like a little kid.”

Oh, yeah ... but better make that a kid with a wild sparkle in her eyes!

Bartlett’s new project is still being fleshed out: a book about Maine mushrooms. She said it’s not a field guide, more of a hodgepodge of information: mushrooms and ecology; shroom health, nutrition and reproduction; watercolor illustrations – she isn’t a fan of those black and white drawings … There may be a few recipes tucked in there, as well.

You never really know where and how far this artist’s imagination will take her ...  and neither does she!