Drawing is a visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to create a drawing include pencils, crayons, Conté crayons, and ink pens, sometimes in combination. More modern tools include styluses, mice and graphics tablets, and gamepads in virtual reality drawing software.
A drawing instrument releases a small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. There are many drawing instruments such as pen, pencils, pastel, crayons, markers, color pencils, water color, and more. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, vellum, wood, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, have been used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard. Drawing has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating ideas. The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.
In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering, and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman, or draughtsman.
Overview Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression within the visual arts. 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. Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,See grisaille and chiaroscuro while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, 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. Using a brush for drawing is very widespread and here it is more the process of using lines and hatching, that characterises something as a drawing. 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.
The conception of drawing as an autonomous art form, aiming at nothing other than itself, arose from discussions among artists and art enthusiasts about the plastic qualities and principles governing painting. The "Quarrel of Color" in the 17th century pitted proponents of color against those of drawing. In these discussions, "drawing" was understood as independent of both technique and medium. It primarily referred to the contour lines of the subjects, as opposed to the colored surface and its modulations, a distinction famously made by Leonardo da Vinci.
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. Drawings created for these purposes are called sketches.
There are several categories of drawing, including: figure drawing cartoon caricature doodle sketch freehand
There are also many drawing methods, such as: line drawing stippling shading tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper)
In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.
History
In communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication. It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invention of the written language, demonstrated by the production of cave paintings of quadrupeds in the caves of southern France and Spain around 30,000 years ago (Art of the Upper Paleolithic). These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts. The sketches and paintings produced by Neolithic times were eventually stylised and simplified in to symbol systems (proto-writing) and eventually into early writing systems.
In manuscripts Before the widespread availability of paper in Europe, monks in European monasteries used drawings, either as underdrawings for illuminated manuscripts on vellum or parchment, or as the final image. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation.
In science
Drawing diagrams of observations is an important part of scientific study.
In 1609, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of Venus and also the sunspots through his observational telescopic drawings. In 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.
As artistic expression
Drawing is one of the easiest ways to visualise ideas and to express one's creativity; therefore it has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practice. Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.See the discussion on erasable drawing boards and 'tafeletten' in Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work. The Renaissance brought about a great sophistication in drawing techniques, enabling artists to represent things more realistically than before, and revealing an interest in geometry and philosophy.
The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the hierarchy of the arts. Photography offered an alternative to drawing as a method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and traditional drawing practice was given less emphasis as an essential skill for artists, particularly so in Western society.
Notable artists and draftsmen Drawing became significant as an art form around the late 15th century, with artists and master engravers such as Albrecht Dürer and Martin Schongauer (–1491), the first Northern engraver known by name. Schongauer came from Alsace, and was born into a family of goldsmiths. Albrecht Dürer, a master of the next generation, was also the son of a goldsmith.Hinrich Sieveking, "German Draughtsmanship in the Ages of Dürer and Goethe", British Museum. Accessed 20 February 2016
Old Master Drawings often reflect the history of the country in which they were produced, and the fundamental characteristics of a nation at that time. In 17th-century Holland, a Protestant country, there were almost no religious artworks, and, with no King or court, most art was bought privately. Drawings of landscapes or genre scenes were often viewed not as sketches but as highly finished works of art. Italian drawings, however, show the influence of Catholicism and the Church, which played a major role in artistic patronage. The same is often true of French drawings, although in the 17th century the disciplines of French ClassicismBarbara Hryszko, A Painter as a Draughtsman. Typology and Terminology of Drawings in Academic Didactics and Artistic Practice in France in 17th Century [dans:] Metodologia, metoda i terminologia grafiki i rysunku. Teoria i praktyka, ed. Jolanta Talbierska, Warszawa 2014, pp. 169–176. meant drawings were less Baroque than the more free Italian counterparts, which conveyed a greater sense of movement.
In the 20th century Modernism encouraged "imaginative originality" and some artists' approach to drawing became less literal, more abstract. World-renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat helped challenge the status quo, with drawing being very much at the centre of their practice, and often re-interpreting traditional technique.
Basquiat's drawings were produced in many different mediums, most commonly ink, pencil, felt-tip or marker, and oil-stick, and he drew on any surface that came to hand, such as doors, clothing, refrigerators, walls and baseball helmets.
The centuries have produced a canon of notable artists and draftsmen, each with their own distinct language of drawing, including: 14th, 15th and 16th: Leonardo da VinciArtCyclopedia, February 2003, "Masterful Leonardo and Graphic Dürer". Accessed 20 February 2016 • Albrecht Dürer • Hans Holbein the Younger • Michelangelo • Pisanello • Raphael 17th: Claude • Jacques de Gheyn II • Guercino • Nicolas Poussin • Rembrandt • Peter Paul Rubens • Pieter Saenredam 18th: François Boucher • Jean-Honoré Fragonard • Giovanni Battista Tiepolo • Antoine Watteau 19th: Aubrey Beardsley • Paul Cézanne • Jacques-Louis David • Honoré Daumier • Edgar Degas • Théodore Géricault • Francisco Goya • Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres • Pierre-Paul Prud'hon • Odilon Redon • John Ruskin • Georges Seurat • Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec • Vincent van Gogh 20th: Max Beckmann • Jean Dubuffet • M. C. Escher • Arshile Gorky • George Grosz • Paul Klee • Oskar Kokoschka • Käthe Kollwitz • Alfred Kubin • André Masson • Alphonse Mucha • Jules Pascin • Pablo Picasso • Egon Schiele • Jean-Michel Basquiat • Andy Warhol 21st: (contemporary drawing) Shuvinai Ashoona • Gabriela Albergaria • Abdelkader Benchamma • Julie Mehretu • Anna Park (artist) • Françoise Pétrovitch • Tania Kovats • Chloe Piene • Maess Anand • Naudline Pierre • Jorinde Voigt • Qiu Zhijie •William Kentridge • Vija Celmins • Ciprian Mureșan
Materials The medium is the means by which ink, pigment, or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media either are dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either silver or lead.lara Broecke, Cennino Cennini's Il Libro dell'Arte: a new English Translation and Commentary with Italian Transcription, Archetype 2015 More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.
Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets. Papers vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.
Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.
Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and becomes brittle much sooner.