An interesting viewpoint to abstract an existing scenery is deconstructing the photo.

Some photo apps will allow to “deconstruct” the picture into an abstract rendition, which then can be painted. However, not being a “tech freak”, I found it simpler to squint my eyes when looking at the picture, trying to forget what objects or scenery I see, not naming them and just taking in shapes, forms and color.

Based on that input then, rendering my own, more abstract version of the picture.

Below pictures show the original pics and my abstracted versions.
This technique is an application of an exercise from the online Abstract-Mojo course of Tracy Verdugo, one of my well appreciated online teachers.

The abstracted painting

The inspiration photo