For Distéfano, only on rare occasions does a drawing not precede or stem from another work, such as a relief or a sculpture. There are few stand-alone cases and they only capture dear faces, such as the portrait of his wife in 1956 and that of Obdulio Gambaro, friend and brother in law, done in 1981. The rest of his innumerable drawings in graphite, ink, sanguine and silverpoint, to mention but a few of the techniques he employs, are a way of reflecting on the details of a sculpture through lines, graphs and shading: its structure, its look, its position and tension, its texture and almost its colour. His technique is impeccable. The classical appearance of his drawings makes them the most categorical proof of their relationship with sculpture, as they show volume, as well as the space generated and peopled by figures, with extraordinary forcefulness. Some of these works are the luminous survivors of an unsatisfactory project for a sculpture, like his 1979 version of The River at Sunset.