To get an idea of my method check out the work in progress of the commissioned piece of Marisol on a Carousel below.

Marisol is my friend's daughter.  She is adorable and very photogenic. Just look at how cute she is in the photograph I had to draw from. I have drawn Marisol before. The finished piece is to the left. Since I usually do animals, this was a difficult project but I enjoyed it immensely. I loved doing this new project as well. There is so much color to it! The background is too light in some places and too dark in others so the background will be greatly simplified and modified. The most detail was drawn with Marisol and the carousel horse.

The sketches below are the cleaned-up versions. I did many sketches with many modifications which can't be seen in the above versions. But the steps shown are accurate. I started with basic shapes and slowly added detail. I also added shading but this can not be seen in the above sketches. All I need is outlines to get this started.

I transferred the sketch onto an 11" x 14" piece of white Strathmore pastel paper.  Once the transfer was complete, I began with the background.  The background is simple with very little detail because I do not want to take away from the primary focus of Marisol on the carousel horse.  (Please note:  The below scanned image scanned a little darker than what it originally looks like.)

As you can see, I saved the hardest part for last - Mari's face.  In retrospect, I should have done the face first.  This way, if I messed up I could start over without having to re-do the whole background and horse again.  But it turned out well.  Marisol isn't exactly right, but it definitely looks like her.