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The most important thing to learn before embarking on drawing the face in colored pencil is how to draw the face in pencil. So the first thing I recommend doing is practicing with pencil on sketch paper or a sketch pad.

Anatomy

The basics anatomy of the human face are integral to creating a realistic portrait. 

To begin, the face can be divided into thirds. The upper third extends from the hairline to the brow line, the middle third from the brow line to the bottom of the nose, and the bottom third from the bottom of the nose to the base of the jawline. This general rule will help keep your proportions in check. 

Although facial features vary from person to person, there are some rules or guidelines can help establish feature placement. The ears should extend from the bottom to just shy of the top of the middle third. If you divide the middle third vertically into quarters, the second quarter from top will be approximately where to place the eyes. The mouth should fall approximately one third from the top of the bottom third. The mouth corners extend outward in line with the center of the eyes. 

Practice each facial feature separately, and then practice placing the features correctly in proportion with the rest of the head. 

For more practice, check out this guide on how to draw portraits:

Adding Color

Once you have mastered drawing in graphite, it is time to move on to drawing the face with colored pencils. My drawing process begins with sketching the proportions lightly using graphite pencil to establish the feature placement. This way, any stray marks can be easily erased later on.

You can refer to my previous post on The Best Colored Pencil Brands for Artists and 7 Best Surfaces for Colored Pencil Artists to help decide which materials you will be using. For this tutorial I will be referring to Prismacolor Premier colored pencil colors, but you may substitute with similar shades of your favorite brands.

I start laying down the darkest areas of the face. First, I will use a neutral dark such as Prismacolor Dark Umber or Sepia to establish some of the shadows. One tip is that many people underestimate how dark the areas are under the eyebrows/eyes and also under the lower lip. If you find you are having trouble gauging the dark areas, turn the drawing and reference photo upside down so that you aren't distracted with what you think the features look like.

Here is how I start sketching the face done in dark umber:

The way you apply the pencil will affect the overall look of the drawing. Some people like to use tiny circular motions to create a seamless and smooth effect. Others use vertical strokes to give the drawing more of a "drawing" feel. I personally like to vary the strokes, and also use stroke directionality to establish contours. 

Next I move on to using a dark red color such as Prismacolor Tuscan Red to establish dark areas of the nostrils, around the eyes, and other warm shadows such as in the hair.

You may also proceed with other darker tones, but it is important at this point to restrain from using cool darks with black or blue tones as they can appear overly blue when you add light tones later on. It is also important to reserve the white of the paper for the lightest areas of the portrait, especially if you are working on a smooth surface such as Strathmore Bristol Board Smooth.

Next I move on the medium tones. There are a wide variety of medium tones that can be used, sometimes depending on the temperature of the lighting. If you are using Prismacolor, medium flesh tones might include Burnt Ochre, Sienna Brown, Bronze, and Sandbar Brown. At this point you can also start to lay down bright colors such as Poppy Red, Carmine Red, Orange, Yellowed Orange, and Yellow Ochre.

For the next step, I address the lightest parts of the face. My favorite light tones are Beige, Light Peach, Peach, Peach Beige, and even sometimes French Gray 10%. At this point, there will be some medium tones that you can blend with the light tones and blend to achieve a smooth skin appearance. 

Here you can see I have established the dark, medium, and light tones of the face:

Completing the Portrait

At this point, I have a good overall basic drawing in colored pencil and I can go back and smooth out areas that need refining. So I continue to cycle through dark, medium, and light tones to achieve a realistic drawing with the goal of smoothing out the skin tones. 

I will also start applying cool tones, such as Blue Lake, Jade Green, Lilac, and Sky Blue. To do this, study the face and look for the areas of the skin with subtle cool hues. Typically this may be under the eyes, above the brows, along parts of the hairline, and perhaps some areas around/under the mouth, chin and jawline. Apply blue tones sparingly and step back often to assess the overall balance.

If you find that an area is too warm or too cool, use color theory to adjust the tone. For example, and area with too much red may be toned with with some green. When doing this, be sure to keep in mind overall values as well so as not to overly darken the area. Complementary colors can be used to adjust areas that lean too warm or too cool.

If you are drawing a background, you may want to block that in at this point to make sure that your values and colors are correct in relation to the colors of the background.

Once the background is complete and colors are adjusted, I make final refinements such as hair details, jewelry, smoothing skin, etc.

Here is the finished piece: