Whether you’re an art school grad looking to get back into figure drawing, a practicing artist needing reference for your next figure-based series, or you just want to do some sketching, open figure drawing sessions are a low cost, low commitment option for artmaking. Below, we’ve compiled a list of open figure drawing sessions in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Bring your own drawing supplies, and be aware that many groups are in small settings, so…

Is the heat sapping all your energy? As if the Fringe Festival wasn’t enough to get you going (have you bought your tickets yet?), this week we found some events to get you geared up, bustin’ a move, and exercising those important wrist muscles flipping open your pocketbook. >>Going, Going, Gone: Head over to MOCA DC in Georgetown on Saturday for some off-the-beaten-path art. Art Enables is sponsoring Outsider Art Inside the Beltway, a juried…

>> The National Gallery opened two new exhibits this past weekend — that makes six new shows in one month! The latest round includes an exhibit of manuscript paintings from the Italian Renaissance period, on loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum in L.A., and a show featuring John James Audubon’s bird-obsessed paintings from his well-known publication, “The Birds of America.” >> Also new on the Mall this week is “Virtue and Entertainment: Chinese Music…

Arts review from J.T. Kirkland of Thinking About Art. Just as you might turn a bottle of shampoo on its end to get every last drop out of it in the shower, so too does Dan Steinhilber get everything he can out of his materials. It just so happens that his work makes use of atypical artistic materials such as bottles of shampoo, packets of artificial sweetener, cardboard boxes, rolls of tape and anything else…