Art Blog - Posting My Art Process and Reflections

I am creating this blog post to demonstrate its use to my AP Students.

This is an example post of how to document and reflect on the process of an artwork, and in particular how I want you to post about your Sustained Investigations. There is guidance also published in Canvas and you should consult that information in addition to this example.

Sustained Investigation of a Painting by Ridge: ICE MELTER

My theme is exploring the Abstract Landscape and attempting to reveal its threatened status through industrial encroachments and climate changes to its condition. I am exploring the change and transformation of materials and image that resolves itself in terms of transcendental painting.

This is a set of small paintings I made that inspired my art process in this artwork (I found this gallery function in the Add button in the blog maker). You may post one sketch and describe how this initial proposal will apply to your theme and/or what you intend it to convey, for example:

These sketches explored how flat space would collide with active painted textural forms. The first painting inspired the concept, and I made two more paintings considering color harmony. Finally, I made an explicit landscape painting from a photo of a mountain stream to consider how I would integrate form.

This is my beginning, where I made a background glaze and added globular forms to the foreground, complete with tape that went across the composition.

This is mid-painting where I had continued to work towards resolution but hit a wall of too much business. There are aspects that were purposeful underpainting and others that were attempts to continue resolution that contributed instead to the packed organization.

Ice Melter, 2019-2021

I have found resolution in this painting with both composition and texture finish. I was able to calm the color harmony and reduce the line matrix to give a calmer viewing of space. The area to the right that can be viewed as a lake and rocks helps create a depth to the painting. This gives way to the sewn pattern frames and the large area of green and abstract mark-making.

This work relates to my Sustained Investigation by showing nods to the landscape through color and form. It refers to melting icecaps by showing hot color next to disappearing patches of white. As well, the neon colors of what could be clouds and sky allude to an unnatural appearance of the world. The final kicker is the fabric the painting is painted on and the sewn strips have printed images of a skull and cross bones, a known way of communicating death.