Abstraction and the Portrait -- work in progress

I was working on a portrait and it was yawningly conventional.  Choices I'd made about limiting the palette didn't energize it, I was feeling frustrated about it.  Competence at capturing a likeness wasn't a satisfying result.

I tested out the idea of pulling out colors into geometric shapes and it did bring a certain zip into the painting.  I'm working on taking that idea further, changing the way the eye moves through the painting through a pattern of bright vs subdued color.  This is where it is so far.