Drawing involves the choice of one of more tools from a wide variety and the choice of a support appropriate to that tool in order to make marks. A wide variety of marks are possible. To produce a drawing the tool needs to move across the surface of the support or used in such a way as to create marks on the support.

Common tools for drawing include: graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, markers and a stylus
Common supports for drawing include: paper, a drawing book, a sketchbook and a digital tablet.
Drawing is distinct from painting. The techniques of "drawing" and "painting" when confused, is generally because similar tools can perform both tasks. But the operations are distinct in that painting generally involves the layering of pigments by means of a brush onto cloth or prepared surfices, whereas drawing is generally concerned with the marking of dark lines onto paper.

Masters of drawing in the 1400s and 1500s included Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, and Raphael. During the 1600s, Claude, Nicolas Poussin, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens created important drawings. In the 1700s, great drawings were produced by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Francisco Goya, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and Antoine Watteau. The masters of drawing during the 1800s included Paul Cézanne, Jacques Louis David, Edgar Degas, Theodore Gericault, Jean Ingres, Odilon Redon, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh. Great drawings in the 1900s have been created by Max Beckmann, Willem De Kooning, Jean Dubuffet, Arshile Gorky, Paul Klee, Oscar Kokoschka, Jules Pascin, Pablo Picasso, and Jackson Pollock.