How I Draw A Realistic Pencil Portrait - Start

 I’m going to show you how I draw a realistic pencil portrait.  Many people have their own way of drawing pencil portrait.  Some of them start by drawing from top to bottom, some start by drawing from left to right… for me, I have two slightly different ways to start when I’m teaching my students to draw.
For teaching beginners in drawing pencil portraits, I will demonstrate by drawing the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ear, the hair, then only the face. This is because it’s easier for beginners to focus on just one area to another. Plus, I won’t ask beginners to add shading on the entire face because it will become very complicated that’s why I draw the hair before the face.
For teaching advanced students in drawing pencil portraits, I will still demonstrate by drawing the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ear, the face, and lastly the hair. The reason that I draw the face first is because for showing advanced students in drawing, I fill up the entire face with shading. It’s easier to draw the hair later on.
The pencil portrait below is the example that I demonstrate for beginners without shading on the entire face: