My first charcoal portrait (Time lapse)

Song: Ciprian Porumbescu - Balada pentru vioara
I've been thinking for a long time to get into drawing portraits in charcoal (have been making a few sketches in graphite) and this is my first one. I decided to draw my mother when she was young. One thing worth mentioning is that the portrait looks so bright because the actual photo was very old and probably taken using a very bright shutter, thus leaving very few shadows and I don't have yet the confidence of adding stuff from my head.I would love to hear your tips guys.

[@rdc0714]

Hello! Such a lovely drawing! :) Your video inspired me to do my first charcoal drawing of my mother as well! :) Sorry to bother, but I have a few questions :)
How long was the overall process?
What type of paper did you use for the drawing?
Any recommendations on for the drawing?
Thank you so much :)!

[@skatesanity]

Hey! Thanks. I'm really glad it inspired you. It means a lot to me.
The whole process was pretty long. I did it in many different sessions. Like, I would work on it between 1-3 hours a day. So I think it took me anywhere between 14-18 hours. And that's because I would notice I did a mistake and then erase and fix it and so on and so forth, and also because I wanted to obtain that photo realistic effect so I had to be very careful with the detail. So work slow and be careful.
About the paper, I used this: Arches Cold Press Watercolor Paper (140lbs).
And as for other recommendations, try to get the proportions as exact as you can, by sketching lightly with a graphite pen. I think this is the most important part, as it was pretty difficult to make corrections after I started to lay the charcoal. What I did was to have the photo on my laptop at the size that I thought would fit on the paper and then I would put a pen in front of the screen and with the help of my thumb would get an approximation of the distance I wanted to measure, and then pin it on the paper. I know, very professional, but hey... I wanted those damn proportions to be right. :) I'll try and eyeball this process more in the future.
As for the charcoal, I did the eyes first, cause I learned that these are the most important. You can mess up other parts a bit, and go unnoticed, but if you get the eyes wrong, that can influence a lot the end result. So after the eyes, just go progressively with the shading, don't add really dark values from the start. Work it up slowly and you'll get to see the differences better.
Another advice is, after you finnish it, you should post it on specialized forums and get constructive criticism. I posted mine on reddit and got tons of good advice.I think that's it.
Just keep in mind that I'm also new to this and this is just the way I did it, but I recommend you also do some research first.
Good luck with the drawing, and looking forward to see it. :)