Richard Diebenkorn holds a special place in my mind. He was an expressionist painter that moved to figures and landscapes and finally to the abstracts like the Ocean Park #79, 1975 show below.

The CBS Morning broadcast mentioned below is illuminating and revealing. Diebenkorn was not only a great artist, but a genuinely good man.
Ken

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #79, 1975 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, purchased with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and with funds contributed by private donors, 1977, 1977-28-1. © 2016 The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation)

View the broadcast:
CBS Sunday Morning broadcast, 1988

"A master of contemporary American art, Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) was noted for landscape paintings, thoughtful figure studies, and geometric abstracts.

In this report for "Sunday Morning," which originally aired on December 27, 1988, correspondent David Browning visited Diebenkorn's studio in California's Sonoma County, to discuss the artist's "trial and error" approach; and New York's Museum of Modern Art, where Diebenkorn was being celebrated by a one-man show of his drawings."

Here is another good resource for all things Diebenkorn: Richard Diebenkorn, Painter's Table

Workshop: Richard Diebenkorn Painting Advice

Richard Diebenkorn

Notes to myself on beginning a painting

1.   Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may not come later. It may be then be a valuable delusion.

2.   The pretty, initial position, which falls short of completeness, is not to be valued-except as a

      stimulus for further moves.

3.   Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.

4.   Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities, but consider them absolutely expendable.

5.   Don't "discover" a subject-of any kind.

6.   Somehow don't be bored-but if you must, use it in action. Use just destructive potential.

7.   Mistakes can't be arranged, but they move you from your present position.

8.   Keep thinking about Pollyanna.

9.   Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.