Hello Leslie:
This is a nice first portrait and quite an accomplishment! I like the luminosity you have captured in the face. Your skin tones look great in the face and your features rise and fall from the plane of the face just right. The eyes look good too. Your monochromatic underpainting really served you here, as the face looks quite dimensional.
It is a great start to painting portraits and you should be proud.
I do have some comments that may help you to see and improve, if you are amenable:
The painting goes a little flat when we go away from the face into the hair band and hair. The reason for this is that you did not follow your values as strictly in varying the value of the hue as it modeled the form. It may just be the picture of the painting and the actual may have more depth in these areas, but keep that in mind for future portraits.
The shirt looks good, but the sleeves again look a little flat as do the arms. Although it appears that you have the highlights and shadows in the right places.
The arm creates an interesting tangent with the corner of the frame - it makes kind of an arrow and leads our eye right off the painting. Something to learn from and change in the future if you see it happening.
Again, this is a great beginning portrait! Keep up the good work.
