Your comment differs from a lot of the 'copy a photo' comments in this thread. There is an assumption that painting has to be a 'hand crafted photo' whereas we

Your comment differs from a lot of the 'copy a photo' comments in this thread. There is an assumption that painting has to be a 'hand crafted photo' whereas we have plenty of people doing that already. For someone coming from a programming background I think that a topic worthy of doing in paint is 'abstraction'. In code we 'abstract things out' into classes and what not but we don't have 'abstract coders', it is part of what code is. With painting there is abstract done properly and understanding what it is about. Abstract painting is hard for people used to still life and landscape scenes to understand. Some people just don't get it. Hence my suggestion is to learn through doing what abstract art is, good abstract art is not the same breed as bad abstract art. There is also a difference in knowing when a piece is finished, there is also an aspect of minimalism akin to neat code. Intellectually I think that it hits the high notes and if a coder with one idea of what 'abstract' means in code goes on a journey of learning what 'abstract' really means in art then they should be able to engage in a creative journey with a difference. Transferable skills and all.