Drawing as an art

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils,crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers,styluses, and various metals (such as silverpoint). An artist who practices or works in drawing may be called a draftsman or draughtsman.

The word drawing is both (1) a noun and (2) the present-participle and gerund forms of the verbdraw. To draw is to produce a drawing. A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

Drawing is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper. Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour, while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, however, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support. Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving, and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction.

“Draw everywhere and all the time. An artist is a sketchbook with a person attached.”
- Irwin Greenberg