Drawing pictures of to-be-remembered target words leads to better memory than does writing them. In the current study, we sought to better understand the relative contribution of the hand-motor movement component of this drawing benefit. Participants encoded, and later recalled, a set of words in each of three intermixed encoding trial types. For the draw and write trial types, participants drew or wrote out the target word on a tablet computer, respectively. For the eyedraw trial type, participants used purposeful eye movements to ‘draw’ a representation of the target using eye-tracking technology. Participants remembered significantly more words that were drawn and eye-drawn than written at encoding, replicating the drawing effect. However, there was no significant difference between words drawn compared to eye-drawn, signifying that manual and ocular motor movement confer comparable memorial benefits. These findings provide evidence that drawing as an encoding tool is as flexible as it is potent.