Artist Aquil Virani creates spontaneous artwork.

This is an improvised painting where I forced myself to produce whatever came to mind. I learned that if you trust yourself and keep things simple, things will work out.

The phrase “Yes and…” is a common lesson in the improv community. To “yes and” (verb) someone’s idea, you must accept it and add to it. If it has been said, it is now true. If it is painted, it’s now on the canvas.

There’s another thing we learn as improvisers. In a scene, everything you need will be established within the first 30 seconds. The rest can build from that. After recently seeing the play “Tick…Tick…Boom,” I had a few concepts in my head so I used those as inspiration and continued using those initial thoughts.