Another artist recommends avoiding "good job?" when talking about artwork. “You have to think about it”, he says. “(don’t say) something you wouldn’t utter while patting a dog on the head.”

And I replied “Sometimes you want to just toss out a little encouragement and not spend a half hour trying to figure out a way to describe the effect of lattice of darks in a composition or heightened sensitivity to flowing line quality. You want to accomplish this without finally resorting to the easy astonishment; "Amazing!"
Sometimes, they've presented a skilled, workmanlike solution on canvas and you just want them to know that they are not forgotten.”