More work on the painting

This is the painting at the moment. I worked on the background by making parts darker and less horizontal brush marks showing. On the sculpture i added more mid tone and defined the outer line. I stopped working on it because i felt i was making things worse not better. Having been back to look at it pinned up in college i feel that the back ground is still distracting maybe because it goes from dark to light to dark again this could be the problem.