Natalie Portman Drawing

So today I got in a sketching kind of mood. I took a few hours of and on to draw a portrait of Natalie Portman. I used this photo as reference:

Then in my photo software changed it to black and white so I could see the shadows better. This was my result:

It's not perfect, but for my first regular sized shot at a portrait I'm pretty proud of it.

Eye Practice

So I've been sketching a bit lately. I've tried drawing realistic looking faces before, but they never really came out right. Then I started to watch some tutorials and read up a bit on how to bring a sketch to life. I started with eyes. I figured that if I could make the eyes look right, bring the life into them, then it's downhill from there. So here's what I have so far, with my first tries at the top and going down are my continued efforts:

After that I started to dabble in working on noses and mouths and came up with this guy on my second try:

I was pretty happy with my results. Especially on my second try. I will continue practicing and when I feel ready, will work on parlaying these into water color. Any tips and tricks on how to do lips a little more realistic? I feel like I'm missing it. Maybe too wide a top lip, and more shading or something? Hmmm....