
There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, and freehand.

Drawings created for these purposes are called studies. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. 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.ĭrawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. 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. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrecĭrawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression within the visual arts. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman, or draughtsman. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering, and technical drawing. The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating ideas. Drawing has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, vellum, wood, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, have been used.

The instrument might be pencils, crayons, pens with inks, brushes with paints or combinations of these, and in more modern times, computer styluses with graphics tablets.Ī drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. 1485) Accademia, Veniceĭrawing is a visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Vitruvian Man ( c.
