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Tricia,
What a beautiful inspired series. I do not want to quibble either with your theme or draughmanship.
I do think, however these figures could be more intregrated into a back ground and a color theme, even a subtle earthy one. As your model looks to be of mixed race, I had trouble finding something to show you. You figures should to reflect the environment they are in.
Looking at the Bougereau nude, you can see the subtle reflections of the surrounding foliage in her skin-tones. The Sargent figure just melts into the background. The Marie-Guillemine Benoist painting of a black woman uses a triadic color system to enliven the picture. A triadic color theme is simply a triangle placed on the color wheel and color picked from the points. In this case red, yellow and blue. You can also see the color of the yellow reflected in her skin. Sargent uses lovely subtle blue purples in the background, a beautiful complementary color to her orange yellow skin-tones.
I think in your seated figure you might look well in Sargent's backdrop as the skin-tones are similar. You have a dark green and a light blue that is too harsh a color separation and is distracting. Since her skin is quite orange a rich blue purple as in the Sargent would have worked well. I generally do a color study to try and get a feeling of luminosity and harmony.
Another point, I think the wave overpowers your figure. The figure could have been a bit bigger or the wave softened to push it back. Both the figure and the wave are competing for attention.
I think with a little more attention to the overall color harmony, you would have a consistently beautiful body of work.
I hope that this is constructive.
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