Having my work critiqued by Mela B felt like taking several rounds in place of a punching bag. A rapid succession of good fists to the stomach. Her feedback was specific and I left better for it. I can now digest and hopefully use it to produce better work!

• Nail down your style. Don't show too many mediums...confuses who you are to a prospective art buyer.
• Work on narrative presentation. Each should tell a story. Show a series of three scenes (story progression) creatively. Do a sketch dummy to show you understand story progression.
• Foreground, middle ground, background! "The image should draw a child in and back out." (Too much character/background, character/background)
• Keep the "organic" quality in your work. This piece of advice confuses me and I wish now that I had clarification. She pointed out the two pieces, in her opinion, that were the most successful and talked about the organic quality(mentioning elbows in particular). By then my head was spinning as I was trying to catalog and retain all this feedback!

And here is a great post about improved portfolio content from an editor present at the Monday event.