drawing, art of the draftsman. In its broadest sense it includes every use of the delineated line and is thus basic to the arts of painting, architecture, sculpture, calligraphy, and geometry. The word drawing is commonly used to denote works in pen, pencil, crayon, chalk, charcoal, or similar media in which form rather than color is emphasized. For centuries drawings have been made either as preparatory studies (see cartoon) or as finished works of art. Preparatory drawings sometimes reveal a vigor and spontaneity lacking in the completed work. Among the many artists acclaimed for their drawings are Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dürer, Rubens, Hogarth, Goya, Daumier, Klee, Picasso, and Matisse. Drawings are often used as illustrations and are reproduced by such processes as etching, engraving, and lithography.

Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), type of international monetary reserve currency established (1968) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Created in response to worries concerning the limitations of gold and dollars as the sole means of settling international accounts, SDRs are designed to augment international liquidity by supplementing the standard reserve currencies. SDRs are assigned to the accounts of IMF members in proportion to their contributions to the fund. Each participating country agrees to accept them as exchangeable for reserve currencies in the settlement of international accounts. Deficit countries can use them to purchase stronger currencies, which then can be used to pay off balance-of-payments debts. As nations adopted the current system of floating exchange rates (1973), the value of SDRs began to be set relative to a "basket" of major currencies. In 1981 the IMF reduced the basket to five currencies (the U.S. dollar, German Deutschmark, Japanese yen, French franc, and British pound); in 1999 the Deutschmark and franc were replaced by their equivalents in the euro. All IMF accounting is done in SDRs, and commercial banks accept SDR-denominated accounts. The IMF has the exclusive right of allocating SDRs; the last such allocation was made in 1981.

Drawing executed with a pencil, an instrument made of graphite enclosed in a wood casing. Though graphite was mined in the 16th century, its use by artists is not known before the 17th century. In the 17th–18th century, graphite was used primarily to make preliminary sketches for more elaborate work in another medium, seldom for finished works. By the late 18th century, an ancestor of the modern pencil was constructed by inserting a rod of natural graphite into a hollow cylinder of wood. Pencil rods produced from mixtures of graphite and clays, true prototypes of the modern graphite pencil, were introduced in 1795. This improvement allowed for better control and encouraged wider use. The great masters of pencil drawing kept the elements of a simple linearism with limited shading, but many artists in the 18th–19th century created elaborate effects of light and shade by rubbing the soft graphite particles with a tightly rolled paper or chamois.

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Artwork executed wholly or in part with pen and ink, usually on paper. It is fundamentally a linear method of making images. Artists who wish to suggest three-dimensional forms use hatching and cross-hatching or washes of colour laid onto the drawing with a brush. The three most common types of ink are black carbon ink, the finest type being Chinese ink or the modern India ink; brown ink, which was popular with the Old Masters; and iron gall, a chemical ink. The three pen types are quill, reed, and metal. Quill pens were most popular for their flexibility and ability to be sharpened to extreme fineness. Steel became the predominant pen type by the 20th century.

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Precise graphical representation of a structure, machine, or its component parts that communicates the intent of a technical design to the fabricator (or the prospective buyer) of the product. Drawings may present the various aspects of an object's form, show the object projected in space, or explain how it is built. Drafting uses orthographic projection, in which the object is viewed along parallel lines that are perpendicular to the plane of the drawing. Orthographic drawings include top views (plans), flat front and side views (elevations), and cross-sectional views showing profile. Perspective drawing, which presents a realistic illusion of space, uses a horizon line and vanishing points to show how objects and spatial relationships might appear to the eye, including diminution of size and convergence of parallel lines. Drafting was done with precision instruments (T square or parallel rule, triangle, mechanical pens and pencils) until computerization revolutionized production methods in architectural and engineering offices.

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or drafting

In yarn manufacture, process of attenuating a loose assemblage of fibres. These fibres, called sliver, pass through a series of rollers, which straighten the individual fibres and make them more parallel. Each pair of rollers spins faster than the previous one. Drawing reduces a soft mass of fibres to a firm uniform strand of usable size. For synthetic fibres, drawing is a stretching process applied to fibres in the plastic state, increasing orientation and reducing size. In metalworking, drawing refers to the process of shaping sheet metal into complex, three-dimensional forms with metal dies. Seealso carding, wire drawing.

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