Pencil drawing, drawing executed with an instrument composed of graphite enclosed in a wood casing and intended either as a sketch for a more elaborate work in another medium, an exercise in visual expression, or a finished work. The cylindrical graphite pencil, because of its usefulness in easily producing linear gray-black strokes, became the successor of the older, metallic drawing stylus, with which late medieval and Renaissance artists and tradesmen sketched or wrote on paper, parchment, or wood.