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The background has kind of grown on me as I've revisited this portrait and I now find that I like its "formlessness", as not being in competition with the detail of the subject and particularly her outfit. Paul Leveille's pastel and oil portraits very often exhibit a similar treatment of the background. I do think a bit more color on the right side would be useful -- if not the blue then perhaps its warmer complement, some subtle orange.
As for "grounding" the subject, the cast shadow of course helps. My first impression of this portrait was that the girl was in a dance outfit, ready for a recital. If that's correct (or even if it's not!), one grounding technique might be to suggest the color and lines of a wooden floor . . . an orange overtone with a couple of faint lines here and there to suggest edges of floorboards (and in proper perspective, a short line at a right angle to suggest the butting together of two boards). I'm only proposing a "suggestion" of the floor and only a vignette in the immediate area of her shoes/slippers. A faint line, a short length to the left of the girl, a shorter length to the right, could sufficiently suggest the back edge of the "stage" and thus give her both location and weight.
There is a very subtle and difficult task of foreshortening in this pose, as we look down onto the subject, and I think it's been handled quite well. The only area that I keep catching on is the forearm of the girl's left arm (on our right), which seems to need to taper ever slightly more to "fit" itself to the quite small wrist.
I agree that the shadows have gotten a bit dark and colorless. There's also some incongruence between the strength and location of the shadows on the arms, torso, and legs, while the face has no shadow at all, as if it were front-lit -- and of course, if the face is front-lit, the other parts of the body would be, too, but in fact they appear to be strongly side-lit (which in turn might cause you to reconsider whether you want a shadow edge on *both* sides of the arm on the viewer's left!)
One last matter of drawing, which also implicates another too-dark shadow, concerns the area of the bright triangle of blue in the outfit, just below the head. The dark line of shadow underneath that shape extends too far to the left, into and almost all the way across the arm, making it appear that there's a thick fold or bulge of flesh across the front of the arm. The arm seems to be appearing from behind the girl, but in fact she is turned slightly toward us, so we would see the smooth front of that extended arm. I would eliminate that extension of the shadow across the arm.
Finally, some light on the neck, so that the head is somehow connected to the body. That almost black triangle of shadow is probably the result of working from the photograph, in which shadows are very often way too dark and bled of color, especially when juxtaposed with the very bright face. Without a visible, lighted neck, the head and the rest of the body almost appear to be interchangeable parts of separate portraits, especially with the quite different flesh tone coloring in the two areas.
Very nice work overall.
Steven
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