Eva Hesse
Untitled (1967)
Tate
Ink, pencil, crayon, charcoal and chalk are the most commonly used materials, but drawings can be made with or in combination with paint and any other wet or dry media.
Drawing
Drawing is essentially a technique in which images are depicted on a surface by making lines, though drawings can also contain tonal areas, washes and other non-linear marks
Related materials and techniques
Chalk
Chalk is a soft powdery white or off-white writing or drawing material in crayon form, generally used on a blackboard or other dark surface
Charcoal
Charcoal is a black crumbly drawing material made of carbon and often used for sketching and under-drawing for paintings, although can also be used to create more finished drawings
Graphite
Graphite is a metallic grey writing and drawing material most commonly used in pencil form – though graphite powder is also used by artists as a drawing material
Ink
Ink is an ancient writing and drawing medium in liquid or paste form, traditionally black or brown in colour – though it can also contain coloured dyes or pigments
Pastel
Pastel is a coloured drawing medium made from pure coloured pigment mixed with a binder to form a stick
Vanishing point
The point at which receding parallel lines viewed in perspective appear to converge
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro is an Italian term which translates as light-dark, and refers to the balance and pattern of light and shade in a painting or drawing
Selected artists who draw
Sculpture and the scalpel
Many of us are familiar with Barbara Hepworth’s drawings of surgeons and staff in operating theatres, which were done in various hospitals over a number of years. But what did the sculptor think about the process? As this extract from a lecture she gave to a group of surgeons in c.1953, recently published for the first time, reveals, her experience taught her of the affinities between the artist and the surgeon, both of whom seek ‘to restore and to maintain the beauty and grace of the human mind and body’
‘The Process of Drawing is like Writing a Diary: It's a Nice Way of Thinking About Time Passing’
To coincide with Tate Britain’s exhibition of the artist’s drawings, as well as the objects from her personal collection that she has acquired over the years, Tate Etc. visits Rachel Whiteread in her studio and talks to her about the controversies that accompanied her early large-scale work, the importance of her drawings, how she got a cast of Peter Sellers’s nose and why she continues to collect strange items from around the world.
Thinking drawing
Vija Celmins was born in Latvia in 1938, fled with her family to Germany in advance of the Soviet army in 1944 and emigrated to the USA in 1948. Since the early 1960s she has made intricate black-and-white drawings of a small range of subjects – seascapes, night skies, the desert floor – some of which have taken a year to complete. This exclusive interview coincided with her drawings retrospective at the Pompidou Centre, Paris.
Explore this term
Drawing in the Dark
Susan Morris approaches the subject of involuntary drawing from the point of view of an artist trying to make a visual record of that which escapes or exceeds deliberate action or conscious intention. In this paper Morris discusses her own work in the context of a wider consideration of the theme, which touches on the work of other artists as well as the writing of psychoanalysts, philosophers and art historians.
Cinematic Drawing in a Digital Age
Developed in relation to works by Tacita Dean and William Kentridge, this article explores the way in which the arrival of digital technology has impacted upon our conception of drawing, suggesting its alignment with older, ‘analogue’ technologies, particularly film.
Selected artworks in the collection
Pornographic Drawing
Cornelia Parker CBE RA
1996
Unicorn
Rebecca Horn
1968–9
I am an Amateur of Velocipedes
Leonora Carrington
1941
Drawing for ‘Children’s Swimming Pool’
Leon Kossoff
1971
Study of a Girl’s Head
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt
1866
No, Daphne, No!
Günter Brus, Arnulf Rainer
1984
Untitled Drawing
Richard Deacon
1980
Drawing at Tate
Rachel Whiteread Drawings
Rachel Whiteread Drawings; past exhibition at Tate Britain
Tracing the Century: Drawing as a Catalyst for Change
Tracing the Century: Drawing as a Catalyst for Change exhibition at Tate Liverpool 16 November 2012 – 20 January 2013
Sculpture and Drawings by Henry Moore
Sculpture and Drawings by Henry Moore; 1951 exhibition at Tate Gallery