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Drawing and sculpture are more closely connected than they may at first appear, and the complex ties between them are the subject of our Drawing exhibition of the month for January. “The Sculptural Line” opens January 17 at The Getty, in Los Angeles, and will be on view until April 16.At times, drawings can be preliminary preparatory designs for sculpture.

A number of outstanding 20th-century landscape drawings and paintings are currently on view at the Arkansas Arts Center, in Little Rock. The exhibition “Herman Maril: The Strong Forms of Our Experience” gathers together nearly 90 works by the noted Mid-Atlantic artist. On view through April 16, it is Drawing magazine’s exhibition of the month for March.

Artist’s Network was in New York this week for a preview of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the 78th exhibition in the series, which dates back to 1932 and is perhaps the most influential survey of contemporary American art. This year’s program is the first Biennial to be held in the Whitney Museum’s new building in Lower Manhattan.

Paper clay is a wonderful medium to use for DIY bowls and with the proper techniques, the end results resemble fired clay in appearance. While you can’t eat off of these DIY bowls, you can use them as trinket trays or simply display them empty for the beautiful works of art they are. I know I’m going to keep them in mind for handmade gifts, as well!

In her new book, The Artist’s Color Guide: Watercolor—Understanding Palette, Pigments and Properties, artist and best-selling author Hazel Soan explores each color of the rainbow—chapter by chapter—to help you select, mix and combine color with confidence to create your own radiant watercolor paintings.

Sandrine Pelissier was a winner in Magazine‘s 2013 All Media Art Competition (mixed media and collage art category). She created her winning painting, Recycling Life (below), in response to thoughts about circularity—“the way everything gets recycled in nature.” The foreground of the painting is a collage landscape of newspaper obituary clippings, signifying that “we all ultimately come back to the ground.

Look for the informative Watercolor Painting for Beginners with Jan Fabian Wallake videos at ArtistsNetwork.tv and learn valuable watercolor lessons! In each art workshop video, award-winning artist and author, Jan Fabian Wallake, guides you through a beautiful watercolor painting. Jan’s easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, will give you the tools you need to create your own wonderful watercolors.

Take a break from the holiday treats and gift shopping to relax and let your creativity loose with a joyful painting tutorial. Below is an excerpt from Intuitive Painting Workshop by Alena Hennessy so you can learn how to create lush evergreen trees filled with twinkling lights.A Painting Perfect for the Holidays, Step-by-StepWith the year now coming to a close, what a perfect way to celebrate by making a painting just in time for the holidays.

Barbara Fox ( loves flowers—growing them, photographing them, painting them—but she’s not content to stick with what she knows and loves. She’s constantly challenging herself to try new techniques in watercolor and paint subject matter beyond the realm of her beloved peonies and roses.

The Exploring Color Workshop kit is one of our newest collections, and includes Nita Leland’s Exploring Color Workshop 30th Anniversary Edition, Confident Color and her Color Scheme Selector (color wheel). Get it today while supplies last!Also, Magazine’s All Media Art Competition is open for entries through mid-October.

Tone Poems of NightDuring this time of year we have to give into the somewhat strange urge to celebrate the night. Strange because we often think daylight is the thing to savor, but whether you are a painter or simply love art, take this opportunity to give night a chance.The best way to do that is to explore nocturnes — paintings of twilight, dusk and night — and relish how magical stars over a snowy field or the warm glow of a fiery sunset against the deepest blue sky can be.

Drawing magazine is thrilled to present the 14 winning drawings in our 5th annual Shades of Gray Competition. This year the grand prize goes to Texas artist Julio Reyes for his mixed-media drawing Deliverance. Also receiving top prizes are Katherine Young, Agnes Grochulska and Janet Evander. A full writeup of the competition will appear in the spring issue of Drawing (and you can subscribe to the magazine here).

Competition Spotlight artists are chosen from Artists Magazine’s Annual Art Competition finalists. Click here to learn about our open art contests and enter your best work today!Art Competition Spotlight: Tricia GeorgeI began Home (above) by troweling multiple layers of metallic acrylics mixed with acrylic gel mediums and colored plasters on a panel primed with STIX primer.

Have more than one great idea for how to approach your next painting? Maybe you want to paint a charming old barn on a hill; but then, you also want to clearly show where this barn is located. Why not do both in the same painting? Artist and instructor Gordon MacKenzie shares how to create two points of view within one painting subject with a fun demonstration of a homestead landscape, that is, well, quite literally “mapped out.

4 Drawing Exercises That Will Give You a Confidence BoostFor close to thirty years, Bert Dodson has shown people how to draw with imagination and creativity. He is the author and illustrator of the best-selling learn-to-draw classic Keys to Drawing as well as the illustrator of over 80 books. Below we share excerpts and popular drawing exercises from his book, Keys to Drawing with Imagination.

Did you know that good drawing and rendering skills will help give you a solid foundation in tone, otherwise known as value? Value is how light or darkness of a color.For example: If you took a black and white photograph of your painting, the shades of grey would be the different values or tones within the painting.

Painting a Watercolor Flower: Petals and More!Birgit O’Connor is completely blissed out on watercolor flower painting — and as the author and instructor behind Watercolor Flower Painting, she certainly deserves the reputation! — and spending time painting flowers has taught this popular instructor a lot.

With John P. OsborneThere’s a formula of sorts for determining the subtle atmospheric progression of colors and color values. “No matter what we’re painting and how important the figure, still life or landscape,” Osborne says, “there’s a light average value and a shadow average value, and when you add the halftone between the two, or the middle value of the palette, you have form.

It’s said that to experience the present, view yourself as an outsider would, as if you were an actor in a movie scene. This is a fun way to look at life, and to force yourself to notice your surroundings when otherwise you might not; what do you hear, see, feel? Sometimes we don’t need to play this little mental game though–we find ourselves in a moment and wish to remember it forever.

Painting Water in PastelPainting water is a complicated subject, probably more so than any other landscape subject. It requires the most planning of all the landscape elements. With painting water in pastel or in any other medium, you first must slow down and observe. What you’ll find is that you start to see what is really there, and not just what you think you see.