Drawing

Introduction
General considerations
- Elements and principles of design
  - Plane techniques
  - The drawing surface
  - Relationship between drawing and other art forms
- Surfaces
- Tools and techniques
  - Charcoal
  - Chalks
  - Metalpoints
  - Graphite point
  - Colored crayons
  - Incised drawing
  - Brush, pen, and dyestuffs
    - Pens
    - Inks
    - Pen drawings
    - Brush drawings
    - Combinations of various techniques
    - Mechanical devices
- Applied drawings
- Subject matter of drawing
  - Portraits
  - Landscapes
  - Figure compositions and still lifes
  - Fanciful and nonrepresentational drawings
  - Artistic architectural drawings
History of drawing
- Western
  - 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries
  - 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries
  - Modern
- Eastern

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images & Videos

Watercolor painting by Berthe Morisot showing Edma seated on a sofa in a floral dress with her young daughter Jeanne beside her, both facing slightly right.

View Georgette Seabrooke drawing a sketch

limestone ostracon depicting a cat, a boy, and a mouse magistrate

Mary Cassatt: Mother Combing Sara's Hair (No. 1)

Morris Kantor: Untitled (Female Walking Nude)

Peter Paul Rubens: Portrait of a Young Woman

Rosalba Carriera: A Young Lady with a Parrot

Leonardo da Vinci: Adoration of the Magi

At a Glance

drawing summary

Related Questions

How are drawing and engraving connected?
How can a line make an object appear three-dimensional in a drawing?
How can a pen create both delicate and forceful lines?
How can colored chalks and watercolor expand the effects of drawing?
How can empty space represent distance or objects in a drawing?
How can interrupted lines suggest fading edges or distance?
How did Chinese artists treat drawing and painting as closely connected arts?
How did Edgar Degas's drawings show careful observation of horses and ballet dancers?
How did Francisco de Goya combine light effects and dramatic shadows in his drawings?
How did Giovanni Battista Piranesi use drawing to portray Roman architecture?
How did Hokusai use expressive lines to depict social life?
How did Honoré Daumier use drawing for social criticism?
How did Jacques Callot use pen drawing to tell stories?
How did Japanese color woodcuts influence European artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Mary Cassatt?
How did Michelangelo and Albrecht Dürer use cross-hatching?
How did Persian and Mughal miniature paintings use precise lines?
How did Rembrandt use drawing as a teaching tool and a way to experiment?
How did artists use charcoal for quick sketches and figure studies?
How did line and contour express movement in Indian and Sri Lankan drawings?
How did preliminary drawings help artists create paintings and sculptures?
How did sinopia function as a preliminary drawing for fresco painting?
How do dry drawing tools differ from liquid drawing tools?
How do smooth curved lines create an elegant effect in a drawing?
How do straight angular lines affect the mood of a drawing?
How do thick and thin lines change the appearance of a drawing?
How does an outline sketch communicate the shape of an object?
How does chiaroscuro use light and shade in drawings?
How does cross-hatching create shadows and volume?
How does hatching show light and form in a drawing?
How does oiled charcoal differ from dry charcoal?
How does rubbing powdered material onto paper create tones in a drawing?
How is drawing different from painting?
What are baimiao and pomo in Chinese drawing?
What materials have artists used to make drawings?
When did independent drawings become valued as finished artworks?
Which types of paper work best for pen drawings and pastel drawings?
Why can charcoal be used for both fine lines and broad shaded areas?
Why does the blank paper around a drawing matter to its composition?
Why has paper been the most common drawing surface since the 15th century?
Why is Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres known for strict linear drawing?
Why is a brush useful for making broad tones in a drawing?
Why is cross-hatching useful for drawing the human body?
Why is drawing considered the basis of many visual arts?
Why is wood-pulp paper less suitable for preserving artwork?
Why must charcoal drawings be protected with fixative?
Why was the outline sketch important in medieval art?
How do vector and raster graphics differ?
What is ray tracing in computer graphics?
How does NVIDIA’s DLSS use machine learning to enhance graphics rendering?

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External Websites

Smarthistory - Preparatory Drawing During the Italian Renaissance, an Introduction
National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Drawing as a versatile cognitive tool
Atlantic Canada Pressbooks Network - Technically Drawn - Determine Dimensions from Drawings
Art in Context - What Is Drawing? Â– A Detailed Introduction to Drawing Artwork
The Canadian Encyclopedia - Drawing
Humanities LibreTexts - Drawing Fundamentals
Art UK - What is drawing?

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

drawing - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
drawing - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Drawing

art

Written by

Heribert R. Hutter

Former Director, Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Author of Drawing: History and Technique and others.

Heribert R. Hutter

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 8, 2026 •History

Drawing, the art or technique of producing images on a surface, usually paper, by means of marks, usually of ink, graphite, chalk, charcoal, or crayon. Drawing as formal artistic creation might be defined as the primarily linear rendition of objects in the visible world, as well as of concepts, thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and fantasies given visual form, of symbols and even of abstract forms. This definition, however, applies to all graphic arts and techniques that...

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