Passion for travel around Michigan and love for watercolor led to Janice Dumas’ latest painting series, “Journey Through Michigan.”

The watercolor project is meant to capture the essence of Michigan through 207 6-by-6-inch paintings.

“I’ve had people tell me that they thought it was a great tribute to Michigan,” says Dumas, a Milford resident. “They said I just managed to capture everything Michigan is. Some of them are scenes, there’s one that’s just a basket of apples — they’re all things you see in Michigan.”

Painting since she was a kid, Dumas started getting serious about art about 25 years ago, and for the past four years, she has been painting full-time.

Dumas loves to travel around the state, and for this project, did some of her paintings on-site in addition to taking photographs to paint from.

Each painting takes from two to five hours, though when she paints based on her photographs, she does multiple works at once.

“Journey Through Michigan” is installed at the ArtPrize 9 festival in Grand Rapids. Unlike other shows and exhibits, the works at ArtPrize — which is the most-attended public art event on the planet — are displayed around the city, in landscaping, restaurants, churches and other spots for everyone to take in.

Dumas participated in a collaboration at ArtPrize in 2013, in addition to having a painting at the festival in 2014. She says she likes that it’s more of an event, and she’s enjoyed talking to a wide variety of people.

“People come to ArtPrize from all over, and a lot of the people from out of the state liked my exhibit because it was a refresher of all of the things they’ve missed from Michigan,” she says. “I talked to others who guessed where all my paintings were, and people who hoped to travel commenting on places they’d like to go.”

In its ninth year, the international ArtPrize competition has 175 venues displaying works by 1,514 artists.

Patrons narrow down the more than 1,300 works to choose winners, through multiple rounds of voting, with the first done in person and those after cast online.

Prizes total $500,000 and grants to support artists reached $280,000 this year.

For Dumas, ArtPrize is a fun place to let others take in her paintings while connecting with those who share her love of the mitten state.

“I think this is such a great place to live — I love Michigan and love traveling here,” Dumas says. “The series has touched a lot of people who feel the same way and lots of people who have come to find me to tell me that, and it was really cool.”

• If You Go: ArtPrize Nine is running throughout downtown Grand Rapids until Oct. 8. Visit artprize.org for details.