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When newspapers first hit the streets, their content was made up exclusively of words and drawings. Of course the camera was not yet invented, but the drawings served as useful visual information to populations that were largely illiterate. The arrival of the camera somewhat reduced the high volumes of drawings in newspapers, but the traditional art form continued to be an integral part of the print media. Drawings, bearing the signature styles of individual artists, form a truly established art genre difficult to ignore.

The digital age may have provided the traditional ‘sketch’ artist fresh possibilities with editing and animation software, but computers only created a new cousin to the old genre that continues to be relevant in a highly industrialized world with complex communication channels.

Drawings’ manufacturing processes give them an added advantage over any new media.

The reason why drawing has survived through art movements, from the Renaissance period to the current post-modern era is the same basis for their continued existence, well into multiple future generations.

Drawing is a direct translation of mental images from visual, imagined visual components to a finished product on a piece of paper.

Some of the products are ‘duplicates’ of physical structures or compositions perceived by the artist, but the process of transformation of psychosomatic visions into physical form is the final, compulsory step for any drawing. The artists, inspired differently, having vastly diverse lived experiences and with individualistic personalities, are bound to produce idiosyncratic artworks.

A signature or the character traits of a set of drawings that identifies artworks as belonging to one artist, more commonly referred to as style, is the big magnet drawing a big audience to drawings.

Lines, shadings, forms, texture, emotional value and intensity are always different from one artist to another.
Simply put, each artist has a working formula of how to make a hand and the mind to work together to create a drawing.

No machine has quite mastered the individualism and personality displayed by drawings.
From an early age, artists find the need to develop an outlet for the images that keep forming in the mind.

The images may be hazy and sometimes incomprehensible for toddlers, but the mental visuals become clearer with age and with the bond between hand and mind becoming stronger, development of style would take years.

The images may move and talk, and speech becomes a part of the composition.
Should the combination of visuals and words grow stronger as the style develops, this may help the artist choose a specific sub-genre to work in, from comics, advertising, editorial cartooning, entertainment, and many others.

The purpose of producing drawings also changes through time.
At a younger age, drawing could be a mere pastime, triggered by a whole range of emotions, and admired and despised in equal measure.

The biggest enemy for young, budding drawing artists has to be the colouring book, with its instructions and restrictions.
The colouring book demands control a characteristic that is personal and always out of place with artistic expression.
Statements such as, ‘Here, colour in but do not go over the boundaries’ make the entire exercise rather pointless.

It may only succeed in making the poor kid’s hand rigid and a little like every other small hand around.
The set limits inhibit development, and would stop the transformation from amateur art to professionalism.

Professional drawings in Zimbabwean newspapers, particularly social commentary shows that the good old-fashioned sketch has a place in the mainstream media.

Newspapers’ editorial cartoons retain relevance each time they are presented to readers.
Any printed newspaper can publish news and photographs, but none with as much exclusivity as the cartoon.

The newspaper can be refreshing when an eighth of one op-ed page is reserved for a hand-made original composition with distinctive feature that can be traced back to just one creator.

Drawing has continued to survive because of its uniqueness.
A camera can come up with an image faster, cheaper and more accurate, but it falls well short of the ultimate finesse without the power to distort, exaggerate, adjust and manipulate.

Drawing creates a likeness to recognizable objects, only in an extremely personalized fashion such that no other artist could create in the exact way.

Drawing has been around for a long time.
Local ancestors and others elsewhere left rock paintings that are now central to the documentation of the ancient people’s history.

The drawings meant something then and now new meanings for drawings emerge as societal cultures evolve.
They have lost none of their touch as great communicators.

A drawing maybe a rock painting, an illustration, a cartoon or graffiti, but whatever it is, its primary meaning is always apparent.
Elements in a drawing are arranged in a way that the image formerly existent only in the artist’s head, may in turn be transferred into an audience’s mind, and retain its meaning.

Other pieces of information can achieve a similar feat, but the drawing does it better.
Drawing teaches and perfects balance and order by enhancing awareness and perceptions of physical elements and actions around the artist, thereby giving him or her a critical ability to evaluate all things with open mindedness.

It can alter, in a good way, one’s perceptual abilities.
The foundations of drawing are embedded in one’s ability to learn to make visual language useful, to learn planning, processing, use critical thinking, and to learn how to rationalize order within the chaos of multiple mental abstraction.

For these reasons alone, the legacy of drawing is safe.
All other forms of art can be seen as extensions of drawing, the primary entry point for artistic expression.