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You mentioned composition...where should I have placed her.
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I have a tape of poet Robert Bly reading one of his poems from some 20 or 30 years earlier, and upon being queried about the meaning of a particular metaphor, he admitted that he didn't have any idea what he was thinking of at the time.
Perhaps what I was thinking of in vaguely commenting on composition was that I would have liked to see the effect of having the subject's body turned just a bit and then backed up slightly against the side of the composition, so that the center of the face (which I'm visualizing as still being essentially "face out" in orientation) didn't coincide with the center of the canvas. Perhaps an almost imperceptible tilt of the head toward that centerline. A slight turn in the body might have also helped in developing more form in the blouse (with foreshortening, more varied light effects, and so on). It's easy to say, a little harder to visualize, and almost impossible to be certain of without actually seeing the compositional alternatives in real life. Hence the vagueness of my suggestion.
I suppose my comments about the background were influenced somewhat by many of the portraits done by
SOG artist Simmie Knox. If you haven't browsed through his gallery, you might want to. I find it amazing how his choice of very dark backgrounds brings so much opportunity into the execution of flesh tones in dark-skinned subjects.
I admit that I've never painted Black/African-American subjects. My color comments were based on observation (as of Knox's work) and remarks made
elsewhere on site by Peggy Baumgaertner and others, and by Chris Saper in
her book (page 54).
I do hope that I didn't put you off with my comment about critiquing a finished piece. I'm sure you understand when I say that I always feel kind of bad about noting, say, a drawing error, if I know that the work is done and delivered and there's no chance to reconsider the area in question.
All that being said, I want to add that as I returned to this portrait several times in this process, I always liked the many things that are "right" about it. It's fun for me to kind of already like the person just based on a special quality or character displayed in the portrait, and that's always a big "right" before we even get into the critique.
Cheers