Now I'm confused.  I thought the wrinkles and the lines were good thinks to incorporate, and as a matter of fact, a sign of skill in the artist.  I don't particularly grasp the model's form any more clearly in the finished product than I did in the busier original.  I half expected the finished product to feature prominent breasts, which it doesn't, if the goal was to allow the body planes to manifest.

My experience with trying to draw clothed figures is that final details are painful to settle down on, to work on.  I'm a beginning illustrator.  The fine illustrators who do fashion work that sneaks into realistic fine art often will feature the busy details to remove the cartoony feel, or so it seems.

Can you clarify this for me?

As an artist of more than 30 years, like Dawn, I would have to respectfully disagree with her assessment. This is not a painting but a tight graphite rendering. The details mentioned in her critique are extensions of the artist and her style, which is not loose. I would grant Karrie a validation of her style and not touch the drawing as it stands-- a representation of her technique at this point in time. However, I would like to offer words that inspire her to keep plumbing the essence of her drawings and push the boundaries of what she is seeing. Instead of a critique, I would ask Karrie if she was happy with the rendering. If not, I would help her develop her own set of criteria in line with her vision to troubleshoot her own work.

In my opinion the strip on the pants had to be subdued as that is where my eye went and stayed...

I agree with JB - the stripe on the pants was distracting - HOWEVER I think the shirt looked much better the original way. The critic did NOT find the body beneath the shirt.  He took a very tight (but wonderful) painting and added un-necessary looseness to it.

This is a brilliant drawing when you consider that it was done by a High School Student!  Well done Karrie!! I have to agree that the stripe on the pants is drawing your eye and distracting from the more relevant parts of the drawing.  My experience has been in video graphics for many years where I have done a lot of color grading and my feeling is that the drawing lacks contrast.  A better result would have been achieved if the darks in the background and the less important parts of the picture were pushed back and the more important ones (face, front of the shirt nearest knee and foot etc.) were hilighted and brought forward.  I have played with the image on Photoshop to do a comparison, but alas cannot find a way to attach it to my comment.