creating portraits in art journals

In my never ending quest to create a decent face, I have been practising my face drawing.  As I still wasn't happy with the results I then went hunting for the clearest explanation.  I found one!  Essentially I knew that the nose was half way down, and the eyes in the middle... but somewhere I would always be a little off... did that mean the top of the eyes were in the middle or the lower lid?  Was the mouth line the top, middle or lower part of lip... and so on.

This is what I discovered to be the easiest way to consider the face proportions, and I drew a stylised one to keep for my own future reference.  There is nothing new or special about these proportions, and any good drawing book will have the same or similar.  I just needed to clarify for myself exactly where things go in relation to each other on the face.  And it needed to be quick, and help me to 'eyeball' things for sketches.

So after all that research, I finally drew what I consider to be a pretty decent face.  This tiny pencil and charcoal sketch is of no particular person, but I like the fact that she could be.
I draw many faces as part of my art journal - it is nice to add a face or figure.  And although a girly face is cute, I just like the fact that if I am going to draw a face, it looks more real than not, even if only on a journal page.  Regardless of whether you want to draw a realistic, or a cutsy girly face, having the right proportions is a good place to start!