Shawn...the light background is fine for the "Christ" image, coloration too (I would have made a murky dark background with a spot "halo" behind her head/crown, which you could paint (with brush and whatever, then encaustic). Propping is excellent, and a suitably subtle facial expression, which could easily have been overdone. Call her up and work for a while with her, she seems to "get the drift". Don't worry about backgrounds... paint them!) On the other side, the crop seems counterproductive, giving my eye too many exits from the frame (head and both elbows. If these had stayed within the frame, the lyric motion of her body and the interior framing of her arms would have kept the eye moving rhythmically inside the frame, with her face as the focal point and lower torso as exit/entry anchor. Check your orthodox iconography for reference.(posted 8611 days ago)Image #2, sooo confusing, I wonder more about the busy stuff floating around than anything else. Her face and arms are hard to differentiate from whatever that other stuff is (for instance, the tip of her nose...) you lose her true profile and don't get anything interesting with which to replace it. I don't think you would paint this image. Speaking of which, you should own some painting software and make images specifically to "paint" on. Or as I suggested above, paint right on this print. This is a very hot arena in the art world currently, and would use three of your personal interests and capabilities.
re: wayne's observations... I concur, portraits don't need eyes, and furthermore, every image of a face is not a portrait, and every portrait does not need a face!... t