This time I have done the portrait using Soft Vine charcoal and used fingers and paper for blending.  I used a Pastel pallet knife for drawing.  I have put a few intermediate steps, below, for the reader to see how my work progressed.

Below are a few intermediate steps, leading up to completion.

#1: Using Pastel knife and soft charcoal shavings/ Powder charcoal to draw.  It is very easy to use kneaded eraser to make corrections.

#2: Putting in the values, as I see it, using Soft Vine Charcoal.

#3:  Final result, after correcting values, fixing edges and blending (where necessary).