I used to love pottery and sculpting. I suspect I still do love it, but my current studio set up does not include enough room for a clay station. Something I've noticed when I'm painting abstracts, and my mind zones out a little to express feeling, rather than concrete thoughts in the artwork, is that I treat the paint and the canvas like sculpture. I use my palette knife to scrape away layers, add more layers, and scrape again.
So it isn't a surprise that I have been using modeling paste in my most recent abstract pieces so I have more to carve. I love the dimension and texture it adds and I feel the need to keep the compositions simple to let the artwork's texture receive the viewer's attention.
"Worlds Inside" 9x12
"Things I learned in Prism" 9x14