From blank paper to portrait!

I asked a local fellow crafter today whether she would mind me drawing a portrait of her and her daughter for a little practice, it was such a beautiful photo of them both and an absolute dream to draw! I'm not good enough to try and draw a portrait from life yet...maybe one day in the future but definately not anytime soon! I usually find working from photographs works best for me, I like to spend time studying it and getting a feel for the subjects...I think if I were to draw from life my subjects would get a little freaked out with me standing an inch away from them inspecting the curve of their face or the shape of their nose!

Working in the preliminary sketches and figuring out what needs to go where...I always find this the hardest part of any drawing! Especially faces!

Slowly beginning to add in areas of major shading and smaller details

Working in the facial features...I always leave the trickiest part til last, in this case the baby's face

At this stage I'd been at it for about an hour, nearly finished! Just a few more finishing touches to add.

And then suddenly everything comes together!

I always feel a strange mixture of things when beginning a drawing... first and foremost it's me worrying that the finished product won't work out, or that I will make some major unfixable mistake and end up ruining it. Logic says to put it aside and try again but my patience and expectations tell me 'not going to happen!'. I am by NO means a professional, nor am I particularly acurate with my portraits...I know when something hasn't been drawn right, I notice it only at the end and by that stage I'm just so glad it mostly worked out that I don't mind too much. I keep telling myself perfection will come with practice and practice, practice practice is what I intend to do! The other feelings usually consist of anticipation...not to see the end product, but anticipation of what will come out of the end of my pencil along the way, how I tackle each section; I ALWAYS feel nervous..I don't know why! Whether Im drawing for a commission or just for fun I always feel nerves! Like someone is watching me and ready to pounce on any mistake although that's probably just my paranoia getting to me. Then at the end I get confused as to whether I should feel relieved that it's over and it doesn't look like a stick figure, if I should feel accomplished and proud of my work or whether I should discard it and start over again. That is very contradictory of my previous comment, I never ACTUALLY discard my work and start again (even though sometimes I should) but that doesn't stop me feeling like I should. My oh my there goes my cup half empty attitude again! I can't just be happy about it can I? haha ohhh well... I guess that's why I blog! I've shown you the basic processes I go through to produce a drawing, perhaps you can appreciate it for me? :o)