I agree. the smudging is a bit flat. However not bad. It shows an attention for the focal, and also a basic knowledge of color usage.

Work on your composition. if you had move the render to one side or the other it'd ahve made the image much more appealing.
When you smudge it's important to go from large brush to small, so you maintain detail in your smudgign and don't get a flat looking wave of color.

the render border is decent but i would have prefered it black. Black and white work better than any color will 99% of the time.

not bad oevrall though, check out some tutorials.