Inaugural Red Brick Roads Paint Out to be hosted by Wyatt Waters Gallery
By Sherry Lucas
The Red Brick Roads Paint Out, hosted by Wyatt Waters Gallery, makes its debut at the 2025 Red Brick Roads Music & Arts Festival, peppering the festival grounds and surrounding locales with onsite painters capturing the surroundings and the action.
This new event is part of organizers’ strategy to enhance the festival’s art presence as it celebrates creativity in the community. The Red Brick Roads Festival is a joint production of the Clinton Chamber of Commerce, Main Street Clinton and the City of Clinton.
The Red Brick Roads Paint Out stems, too, from artist Waters’ participation in a plein air paint out in Ocean Springs post-COVID.
“It was such a great experience for him. There wasn’t a competition, it was just being around other painters, visiting and painting together,” the artist’s wife, Kristi Waters, said. “That’s what we’re trying to recreate with this event this year.”
Plein air painting simply means painting outdoors, in the open air. It comes from the French expression en plein air, and describes the painter’s presence in the landscape with the subject in view. Wyatt Waters is a watercolor master at it, and has become a welcome fixture on Mississippi’s roadsides and sidewalks over the years, capturing landscapes’ and cityscapes’ beauty, iconic landmarks and quirky charms.
The Red Brick Roads Paint Out wraps in the festival itself, as it unfolds on the brick streets of Olde Towne. The event is not a juried competition. There is a People’s Choice component to engage the public with the artists’ works, but that aspect is not required for participation. There is also the opportunity for artists to sell paintings produced during the Paint Out.
The Paint Out event time is 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 29. Those participating in People’s Choice will need to get finished works to the gallery by 2:30 to 3 p.m., so photos can be taken and uploaded, and works can be hung for the competition.
Artists can participate on one of three levels: student, amateur, or advanced/professional. The $80 entry fee includes a weekend pass to the festival and its Friday and Saturday live music lineup (a $35 value), as well as a meet-and-mingle social gathering, a swag bag, hospitality access to the newly-renovated Wyatt Waters Gallery for refreshments and restroom breaks, plus donuts and coffee Saturday morning and lunch on Saturday.
Voting to select 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes for the three categories will take place online. Selling artists will be given a QR code posted next to their artwork, directing the interested buyer to the artist’s contact to arrange purchase. Selling artists agree to notify the gallery of sales, with sales tax collected by festival organizers. Find out more details at WyattWaters.com, clicking on the tab for upcoming workshops.
“We just want to encourage people to get out and paint, and really experience plein air painting,” Kristi Waters said. They’ve reached out to fellow artists through social media and plein air painting groups and hope forty to fifty will participate in this inaugural event.
Artists will bring their own painting supplies, and work in the medium of their choice — acrylic, oil, pastel, watercolor, pens.
“Whatever they want — just draw,” Kristi Waters said. It’s all about the camaraderie of artists with fellow members of their tribe, and the joy of art enthusiasts watching and enjoying their on-the-spot creations.
