Hi @russellferris ! Thank you for asking this, I wanted to talk a bit more about my process but didn't want to run the risk of making the article a bit longer than it already is :)
I briefly touched on this here in my intro, but when I started out in art, my favorite subjects to paint were people and faces. Doing abstract work actually started out for me by doing a background that was going to initially be for a portrait but I decided to leave it be when others liked the piece by itself. I came to like them that way too!
Nowadays, I still love my portraiture, but whenI need a break and I make an abstract, I focus more on the feeling and the softness of the colors going together, and blending in a more "spiritual" experience with the piece as I paint, rather than executing a "procedure" of creation like some portraiture can feel sometimes :) Thank you so much for this question!!
Please feel free to follow me if you aren't already doing so, I would love to talk and discuss more :)