Drawing is the act of creating an image, idea, or theme through illustration or a picture. Drawing is usually performed with a pencil, pen, crayon, or other tool that leaves behind an amount of itself or that which it contains on the surface it is being applied to: a pencil will deposit amounts of graphite onto paper; a pen or brush will leave ink; a pastel will leave a soft, spreadable mixture of pigment and binder; a crayon will leave wax; a marker will leave a pigment or dye.
More than one of these means may be used to mark on the surface, and different means can interact. Graphite and charcoal, either in a pencil or as powder, will spread. Ink and markers tend to stay just where they have been applied, unless deliberately spread with a brush and solvent. Some media, such as charcoal and pastel, can be blended to create intermediate intensities and colors.
The images conveyed while drawing are usually a result of an individual's perception of the object being illustrated.
Probably more often called drafting, mechanical drawing is a precise engineering technique for preparing plans of objects to be built according to them. In manual drafting, pencils and pens are used, along with various equipment to allow precise distance and angular measurement. Increasingly, manual drafting is being replaced by computer aided design.