SEBASTIAN — Florida Highwayman painter Ray McClendon took Saturday afternoon to introduce the techniques and styles akin to the genre at the Sebastian River Art Center. The impromptu art demonstration attracted nearly two dozen art enthusiasts who sat and watched as he brought to life a fiery sunset.
“I love the way the painting looks when they’re done with it,” said Alice Douberley of paintings done by the Florida Highwaymen.
Not a member of the art club, Douberley said she is looking forward to the possibility of McClendon teaching classes there.
“I’ve admired their work for years,” she said.
McClendon has several pieces on display at the Sebastian River Art Center through Jan. 21.
Getting set up for the demonstration, McClendon enlisted the help of several participants to hunt down an easel, paper towels and mix paints on his palette.
“If the color’s not right, they mixed it wrong,” he teased his helpers as he got his painting underway.
Using a larger than usual canvas, McClendon explained would normally have taken him a month to complete.
“You’re not going to sit here that long,” he said, drawing chuckles from the audience. One reminded him of the Broncos-Patriots NFL Playoff game later that day.
McClendon told the group he planned to paint the sun setting over water – but later, the water threatened to turn into ground.
“Let your brush dictate your painting,” he said, explaining that painters often decided beforehand what their painting is going to look like instead of remaining flexible and just painting, which is what he prefers.
He also told them to not sweat the details – like reality. McClendon recalled a painting he was working on where he got the colors in a reflection reversed. When someone commented on the incorrect reflection, McClendon wasn’t worried.
“I know how it’s supposed to go,” he told the audience, “but it’s my picture.”
As he went about using short, quick strokes on the canvas, McClendon said he was painting backwards from how he normally paints.
He explained that he normally blends the paints on the canvas first, then goes back in two more times to bring the true colors out. This time, during the demonstration, he put the true colors on the canvas and then began blending.
As he worked the paint on the canvas, his watchers peppered him with questions – what color is that? How do you keep the sky from getting muddy? What if you get a bad color mixed in?
“How it turns out is how it’s going to turn out,” McClendon said, explaining he doesn’t get bogged down with the names on the paint labels, nor does he worry if a touch of green ends up in the sky – it’ll blend out anyway.
“The only one who knows you messed up is you,” he reminded the audience.
To prove his point, McClendon used his still-blue paint laden brush to rough out on the canvas where the setting sun would be placed and where he planned to paint a couple stands of trees.
A few in the audience cringed as they saw the blue paint moved to parts of the canvas it normally would not have been.
Later, the blue was overlaid with other colors and blended out – anyone seeing the finished product would have been hard pressed to find where the errant blue had been.
McClendon’s work remains on display at the Sebastian River Art Center, located at 1245 Main Street, Sebastian, through Jan. 21. The center is open to the public for free Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information about the club, visit www.SebastianRiverArtClub.org.