I want to document my experience with the creative process of abstract digital art, which I've been exploring alongside my more representational work.

Abstract work strips away the requirement to represent anything specific. This might seem simpler — you don't have to get the anatomy right — but it creates its own demands. With no subject, every mark has to justify itself purely on visual grounds.

My abstract process: I start with a color decision (palette, temperature relationship) and a texture/mark quality decision (soft and flowing, hard and angular, organic and irregular). Then I work with those two parameters and see what develops.

What I've learned from abstract work that applies to representational work: the weight and rhythm of marks matters independent of what they represent. A painting with good mark rhythm and a solid color decision is visually satisfying even before you examine what it represents. I now pay more attention to these qualities in representational work.