My compositional method was indeed bad for working globally. As a professional level visual artist, I am very familiar with the problem of getting bogged down in the details, which can ruin the global effect of what you are working on.

(By the way, this has nothing to do with how abstract the painting is. I suspect that even the most abstract painters have some overall idea of what they want their painting to look like well before they finish it.)

The realistic style I use for painting is often very abstract. I am not painting faces; I am painting abstract patches of light, shade, and color that happen to look like faces. Here is a video of one of my favorite artists at work in a highly global style; notice how abstract his brush work is, and how it is difficult to tell what he is even painting during the early stages.

Thanks for the recommendations.