Painter Margot Datz’s brain functions like dancing frogs. Her office work sneaks up on her like hungry mice. The industrious artist, whose show Party Animals opens for its annual one-night reception on August 4 at the Grange Hall from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., works like a dog. And when she can find the time, she still knows how to play like a puppy.

But therein lies the problem. Earlier this year, while she was fastidiously researching and recreating coral and fish species for her underwater mural at the Edgartown library, she felt like something was missing in her life. “I realized I wasn’t having enough fun,” Ms. Datz said. To cure this malady, she looked to childhood.

While claims to have a “giant inner child squished inside” her are most likely true, Ms. Datz also has three grandchildren from which she drew inspiration.

“My granddaughter Georgette and I paint almost every day. She’s three and a half and I give her good brushes and then she takes off all her clothes and paints.”

Together, they would paint and enter realms of imagination and stay there for hours. In the world of play, she found respite. This also brought her back to own childhood and to the books she loved, in which animals in human clothing could walk, talk and play.

So, in between “maniacal garden-weeding breaks,” Ms. Datz began to create paintings that portrayed the whimsical world of these anthropomorphized animals. In the paintings, birds gather for bird-seed cocktails, a raccoon in a gown removes its masquerade mask and a group of frogs leap and dance. “It’s like having an open house but this is an open brain,” Ms. Datz said of the show, laughing. “People can walk into my brain and see what’s on my mind.”

Party Animals consists of about a dozen new works, as well as 29 different limited-edition prints and a series of prints of her painting Midnight Circus, in which mice carouse in a kitchen after-hours.

As has been tradition, the show will be open for just one night. The contents of Ms. Datz’s mind are also available for preview but the work is only available for purchase on the night of the reception.

“The opening is loving and fun,” Ms. Datz said. “It’s a love-in. It’s a celebration.”

To schedule a preview, contact margotdatz@gmail.com.