Step 1:  Lightly draw a gesture of the face, neck, and shoulders to be used as a guide for composing the size and placement of your portrait.  Indicate the slant and placement of eyes; (half head).

Step 2:  Section-off the length of the face with horizontal lines at the hairline, top of eyebrows, bottom of the nose, and bottom of the chin.  (On most people, the distance between the top of the eyebrows to the bottom of the nose is about equal with the distance from the bottom of the nose to the chin.)

Step 3:  Break-down the distances between these length sections with halved division guidelines.  1) Start with the thickness of the eyebrows. 2) Eyebrows to eyelid crease. 3) Eyelid crease to top of eye opening. 4) Length of eye opening.  Another line may be placed underneath the lower eyelid to indicate bags if any.  5) Bottom of nose to top of lip. 6) Thickness of top lip.  7) Size of mouth opening (if open.)  8) Thickness of bottom lip.  9) Crease at top of chin.

Step 4:  Starting at the bridge of the nose between the eyes, indicate the distance and width of the features from the nose.  At this time, the iris and pupil of the eye should be drawn in, along with any laugh lines, cheekbone shadows, etc. Once to the outside edges of the face, indicate the top and bottom of exposed ears by marking their height in relation to other features.

 Step 5: (not shown):  Indicate the thickness of the body of the hair by massing or "blocking-in" with shading rather than drawing each strand.  Indicate concave sections of the hair by massing them in with even darker shading.  Many times, beginning artists will draw hair strand-by-strand, but this often looks flat.