When you try to go back to a style you have grown out of...

This is the third attempt (still in progress) at a portrait commission that is supposed to be a companion piece to the little girl "Rachel", the older sister of this sweet little Sarah at the same age in the same dress.  I have had to
contemplate  the complications of this situation for several reasons.  The first being that I have worked
very hard to move past this style of working exactly from a photograph...(the biggest problem with this particular example is that I can't seem to download a clear rendition of the reference photo so am working from a quite fuzzy photo, which would work very well with my current style where I like to
abstract things a little more.  I'm really having a hard time with this simple portrait that I would have in the past dashed off in a matter of hours.... I have been struggling with this for months.  I recently came across a photo of my own of the subject that I can get a very good rendition of the image to work from but Sarah is not in the same costume.  I may start over and try to get the details from my own photo and just paint in the dress.  Frustrating, as I know I can do so much better even in the old style if I had a better photo reference.  Maybe I will just do both in my new looser style and just gift it to their parents.
That would be so much easier!