Hill, a petite blonde with a warm smile and friendly manner, was splattered with paint; blotches of yellow, black, and green spotted her shorts and T-shirt. We noticed a particularly brilliant blue splotch on one cheek.

“It’s very inspirational to be here,” Hill said, raising her palette and miming the same words we had heard over and over again from artists on this tiny, isolated isle. The island is magical. The light is magnificent. The place has soul. There is a painting everywhere you look.

There were also painters everywhere we looked. We had been on the island for a day and already we had seen artists perched on ledges and bluffs, lining the dirt roads, gathering at the edge of the forests, standing with easels propped and brush in hand at Fish Beach, Swim Beach, Pulpit Rock, and Lobster Cove. There were 19 artist studios open to the public (during designated hours or by appointment), and many more artists who had come to the island for a short time to paint or photograph, to carve or draw.

“The island’s been an artist colony for generations. It’s in our DNA,” said Bill Boynton, owner of the Lupine Gallery, which exhibits works from more than 50 contemporary and past Monhegan artists.

Located 10 miles off the mid-Maine coast, the island has been drawing artists from around the world for more than 150 years. Giants in the US art world have been inspired by Monhegan, including George Bellows, C. K. Chatterton, Randall Davey, Robert Henri, Rockwell Kent, Edward Willis Redfield, Frederick Judd Waugh, and three generations of the Wyeth family: N.C., Andrew, and Jamie.

“All the major American artists were here at one time,” said Ed Deci, director of the Monhegan Museum. “You can actually study American art by studying Monhegan art.”

There’s no doubt there’s something special about this picturesque island, with its rugged cliffs and crashing surf; soft, inland meadows and pristine spruce forests; narrow roads and footpaths; and a down-to-earth, hard-working culture, where fishing and lobstering families still live and work by the tide clock.

“It’s a very rich environment,” artist Amy Williams told us, when we popped into the Beers and Williams gallery. (She’s married to artist Kevin Beers and they share a gallery and studio space.) “There’s magic here. The island is still rustic, not marred yet by an overload of technology, so the people tend to be more intuitive.”

Change, in the name of progress, has come slowly. Most of the land is protected by Monhegan Associates, dedicated to “preserving and protecting the wild lands of the island and its simple, friendly way of life.” Outside the small village, clustered around the harbor, the island remains delightfully undeveloped. There are 17 miles of hiking trails, leading through forests, over rocky ledges and cliffs, and along the shore, showcasing landscapes, scenes, and vignettes that we have seen in countless paintings.

We followed the map showing the location of the island’s artist studios, housed in sea cottages and cedar-shingled homes scattered around the island, many with water and wood vistas, and walls decorated floor to high ceiling with paintings and drawings of Monhegan sites.

Is there not one square inch of Monhegan that has not been painted or photographed, we wondered? “It was intimidating at first,” Susan Gilbert said, as she showed us her oil and water paintings, displayed in her small studio overlooking the harbor. “Some of the best artists in the world have come here to paint. You have to find a sense of yourself, learn to follow your own star.”

We sought out Alice Boynton, whose worked we admired in the Lupine Gallery, and who is known for her beautiful sense of light and color. She invited us into her small gallery at her family home, located near the north end of the island. She was humble and a bit introverted, admittedly uncomfortable talking about her work, until we asked her “why Monhegan?” Her eyes lighted up, “I like to paint the light out here, the exquisite northern light. There’s a beautiful clarity about it.”