like actual things

Van Gogh was the inspiration for a wonderful recent session that I spent developing my large abstract painting. I am not accustomed to abstract art, so I have been searching for strategies. For this painting, I began the latest session by strengthening passages of color that were already part of the picture by surrounding them with bold outlines. The idea of outlining passages came to me after looking at Van Gogh paintings. He, of course, was using line to describe the scenes he painted. I was using line without reference to actual things, but otherwise the procedure was similar. Having decided on that strategy, I found the session to be surprisingly enjoyable. I drew contours around various passages of color, doing so as if they were things.

I variegated some of the color passages too, not changing the basic color, but just adding…