After art fell by the wayside for many years, local resident Larry McRae recently picked back up where he left off with a goal of painting architecture in Kernersville.
McRae began his venture in art as a boy when he and his brother made panels of artwork for their father’s sermons.
“My father was an evangelist and my brother and I would draw charts for him and illustrate the Bible for him to use when teaching. Whatever the topic was, we would do the illustrations,” he said. “People liked it because it was different.”
McRae said he picked up a lot of skills through those drawings, mostly due to trial and error.
“On our own, we would also experiment with different types of art,” he said. “I did watercolor for a while, and I was big into cartoons at one time, and even thought I’d be a cartoonist.”
As he grew older, McRae continued to paint with watercolor; however, once his career took off and he started his Kernersville based residential and commercial design company, McRae & Co., and started a family, his interest in art fell by the wayside.
With all of his children out of the house, McRae was once again able to pursue his passion.
“My daughter, Deah, a second year student at UNC Charlotte, was the last one out of the house. Once the kids were all out of the house, I decided to get back into painting,” he said. “It gives me an outlet to do something productive.”
McRae and his wife, Gail, have two other children, Devon and Daniel.
Although the last time he painted he was focusing more on watercolor, McRae has more recently been interested in oil painting.
Looking at his work, you wouldn’t guess that McRae has no formal training in painting.
“Just like before, everything is a bit of trial and error, but I try to be thoughtful about each stroke. I paint the sky first and set a base for what is happening and then work everything back into it,” he said. “With an oil painting it takes six months to dry completely, so I can manipulate them for a couple of weeks. After they are dry, I put a clear coating on them.”
As a designer with an appreciation for architecture, McRae enjoys capturing different architectural aspects of a structure in multiple paintings rather than painting an entire building or structure, whether it be a pergola, arbor, balcony, or something else.
“Having done so much work on ‘the drawing board’ has probably helped me with painting architectural structures,” he said.
McRae’s interest also lies in capturing real life locations and landscapes that are recognizable, especially to residents living in Kernersville.
So far, he has painted elements from his former home, a portion of The Harmon House balcony, and an arbor at Dewberry Farm in Kernersville.
“I think my next painting will be of The Depot and the caboose, and my emphasis this year will be on nothing but Kernersville because there’s a need and opportunity,” he said, noting that he would also like to focus on Körner’s Folly.
Although his focus is mostly Kernersville, McRae does venture out on occasion and paint other landscapes and architecture, such as Pilot Mountain.
“I went up (to Pilot Mountain) on a clear day with my wife,” he said, noting that he took a picture and then painted the landscape after returning home. “It was so clear that you could see Greensboro.”
In his painting, McRae captured the knob with Sauratown Mountain, Hanging Rock, and Moore’s Knob in the background, all drawn to scale.
While he prefers his paintings to be drawn to scale and architecturally detailed, he said he still aims to make his work look like a painting.
“I like to think of my paintings as a loose realistic,” he remarked.
One of the things McRae said is great about his prints is that it can come on wrapped canvas and is matted, giving it the look of an original without the texture of the raised oil paint.
McRae’s paintings and prints can be found at Ella Grace in Kernersville.
For more information about McRae and his paintings, visit www.LarryDMcRae.com.
