After a lot of gratefully received advice here is my latest attempt at smudge painting.
CC most wanted and appreciated.

Wow, Amy, that sure looks awesome. Nice work

Thanks amica i really tried to make it look more painted this time i think i have succeeded.
Im not sure if i like it too much but will keep practicing till i find something that works for me.

That works well Amiebear

You say you are not that sure you like it why? If you can explain some of the reasons you may be able to get some more advice :)

Palms

Wow... This is a quantum leap over the first smudge you did. No one could argue "It looks like a photo" on this one. Well done. You are definitely among the "Rookie of the Year" candidates.

More food for thought...
* In some cases one can make some edges "too smooth" -- like around the eyes, mouth, ears and hairline. One way to get back a little of the edginess is to duplicate the smudged layer, apply "quite a bit" of sharpening, then selectively apply the sharpening via a "hide all" layer mask.
* I applaud your color boldness. I found my eyes attracted to the bright BG colors more than the subject (not good), so you may have gone a little too far with the background in this one. (Bolder colors work well in non-people art, in my opinion.) I've read that some artists use colors in the BG that are approx. 180 degrees from the foreground colors (opposite of the color wheel, complimentary colors). Others use colors from the image. It can work both ways.
* Another possibility is to use an a levels (or curves) adjustment layer to apply a vignette-type effect (darker edges to brighter center) to draw one's eyes to the subject. I added a little more saturation to bring out some color.
* Using layers allows one to tweak and fine tune without having to "redo" the main smudge layer.

Hope this helps. Keep on growing... You are well on your way to becoming a master.

I wasn't sure why i didn't like it at first, but now i looks at Danny version i can tell it was the colors thanks Danny i love it like that.I'm going away to try again thank you all for your great advice.

I agree with Danny on the background that it attracts the eye , I like doing the background on a seperate layer and using a mask, that way you can use the hue/saturation filter to change the colour to want ever you want ( and i find that quite hard to get the "right " colour
also when trying again when you have finished go over your smudge again for bits that you have missed ( and there are always some)
Had a quick 5 mins on your image changing the background and smudging around the jumper on the missed bits

Palms