Drawing - a Special Gift

It is not easy to define the word "drawing" because it embraces a wide range of related but different activities. At it is simplest it can be described as marks made on a sheet of paper, and in this sense it is one of the most basic of all human activities. Young children enjoy scribbling with a pencil or crayon as soon as they have developed sufficient manual dexterity to grip the implement, and long before they consider relating what they are doing to the world they see around them.

This enjoyment of the lines and marks made by various drawing implements is an important factor in all drawing, and paramount in the work of some artists. For most artists, however, drawing also performs a descriptive function: it is a direct response to the visual stimuli of our surroundings.

Drawing is often regarded as a special gift, and it is true that there are people who seem to be able to draw quite effortlessly. Yet drawing, like writing, is a skill which can be acquired; if the motivation is there, most people can learn to draw accurately. In the past, students were taught to draw in a certain way, with the emphasis on mastering a specific set of techniques, but this ignored the essential fact that drawing is first and foremost about seeing.