How to draw faces of children

I have always felt that making sketches and portraits of adults is easier than making the innocent faces of children with delicate features.
Here are some of my sketches which capture the innocent looks of children in their different moods.

The task of making a child's face might be challenging and you might even want to give up when the results are not coming up, but with the help of these tips, the task of drawing a child's portrait would become easier.

• Select a good photograph which enhances the child's soft features. Look for a photograph which has details. Avoid blurry ones.
• Study the reference photograph properly before making the outline. A child's head would have different proportions compared to an adult's. 
• Look at the forehead which in the case of children is usually large.The size of the chin, length of the nose should be studied carefully.
• Choose the right materials- This is very important! Using coarse or rough paper to draw a portrait of a child would not give you the results which you want. The faces of children need to have a soft shadow which rough sheets would not be able to give you.
• Once you done with the observations and are sure about the face proportions, draw a simple and very light outline.
• Make the features lightly. Ditch your 6B and 4B pencils for this.
• Remember to use soft strokes while sketching a baby's portrait.
• Do not add many details to the sketch! If you are making a baby's portrait, carefully make the features without adding too much details. The lesser the details, the better. You don't want a baby to look like an old man with wrinkles!
• Add soft shadows to your sketch.
• Add a background if you want to but the child's face should be the focus.

How to draw a portrait of a child in profile view or side view?

Just follow the above steps along with these tips:

• The head of babies is huge, keep that in mind while outlining the face and draw a huge oval to achieve this.The head part should be larger than the face part.
• Allow space for a large forehead and then decide for the location of the eye.
• Carefully make the nostrils of the baby. Since babies do not have very long noses, the nostrils do not open downwards like in adults. 
• Keep making the outline and continue the lip portion from the nose. 
• Do not make sharp chin as babies do not have sharp chin.A projecting chin would give the face a mature look which you would obviously not like in a child's portrait.
• At the portion of the neck, if required make a double chin layer if your reference photograph has one. Most of the babies do!

If you follow these steps, you'll realize that making a child's portrait is easier and consumes much less time than an adult's portrait.