Sharon Repple
My Inspiration
The name In the Distance reveals my inspiration. I am fascinated by country roads, where they lead, and the story they have to tell. My love for country roads started when our family would visit relatives in rural South Georgia and we would travel the dirt roads through cotton fields, and longleaf pines. The scene in my painting is located in Bourlay Historic Nature Park in Leesburg, Florida. The road is surrounded by palmettos, palms, moss-covered trees, wild grasses and old orange groves. As an artist, painting the beautiful play of light, as it moves across the road and lights the distant field, is a delight. My desire is to invite the viewer to travel this road and breathe in the beauty.
My Design Strategy
The country road creates a natural entrance into the painting leading to the brightly lit field in the distance. My reference photo did not show a field but I added it to draw the viewer to follow the road and as a tool to use negative painting and strong contrast to form foliage. The distant tree line will be painted in cooler colors to create depth with an atmospheric perspective. Once the viewer is on the road, I will then dapple the light as it comes in from the upper left side, backlight the palms, touch the edges of the grasses and palmettos, let it dance across the road and explode on the beautiful wild grasses and hanging moss.
My Working Process
My favorite painting surface is a gessoed panel by Ampersand primed with a mixture of alizarin crimson and Indian yellow adding a warm glow under the surface painting.
I use a limited palette of Liquitex heavy body acrylics, three transparent and three opaque primaries and titanium white.
I mix a black by combining the transparent colors and add white to make luminous grays. Once the position of the horizon line is established and a basic sketch is drawn, I begin by painting the darkest darks and the basic color groups and shapes. Now
I paint with a variety of each color’s values to create detail and capture the light. The final stage and my favorite is to add, as I call it, the “bling.”
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