Cool vs Warm painting

Compare these 2 works, which just happen to be of the same subject, moreover the same photo. Here again you have the muted colours, the geometry and the overall feeling of coolness it conveys. Compare it to the one at bottom. Same image but very different. Notice the man's face in the one below, well how could you not? Yet in the one above the face is expressionless or rather not described fully and picture has an overall effect much like the others gouaches I first described. The watercolour below is entirely different. The subject is engaging with the viewer, there is a sense of story or situation, a man in troubled relationship possibly. The woman sits in front the man partially hidden.

The first makes no real distinction between the subjects, similar tone values, and geometrically laid-out abstracting the picture. While the second definately conveys more about the subjects.
The big diffrence is that one works more abstractly and the other has a stronger narrative? For me the diffrence in making the 2 is one seems to me more spontaneous, the ink line drawing, more chance for it to turn out badly, whilst the other seems more calculated more 'designed?' possibly.
I dont have a preference, but I would say, one takes more skill, at least in terms of drawing, as you could easily trace the figures and do a sort of colour by numbers..like a lot of contemporary art, so maybe I do have a preference...