‘telly fans 9’   – Valentin watching television
drawing of a child – graphite, sketch book

‘telly fans 8’  –  Valentin watching television
graphite, sketchbook.

Getting the age right is an essential part of a portrait, especially for a portrait of youth. Portraits of old age are easy in comparison! For example, wrinkles. Wrinkles are a clue that indicates the age of the sitter. Their presence in a drawing or painting are frequently due to the simple fact of just too many marks & strokes i.e. a lack of an economy of means, which is the ability to get it right first time.

My fellow-painter friends who do portraits for money tell me that flattery works every time. They consciously take ten years off the resemblance by knowing the markers that indicate youth & tweeking them.

QUESTION : Can you identify the elements in the above drawing that indicate the age of the sitter?

(I reckon there’s about ten of them)