A touch of abstract design will greatly improve your compositions I put a lot of emphasis on abstract design in my work, even though it might seem to be a representational painting. An abstract design is much more interesting if it incorporates point, line, and mass shapes in its design. I often use brushwork expressively to represent different objects in a shorthand way. If you do this effectively, you can incorporate the point, line and mass shapes into your compositions just by using brushwork, and so gives your painting a more abstract design to make your painting much more interesting