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I love everything about painting. I love feeling the paint, seeing a rich color spread under my brush onto a surface, and the play between colors coming together. I love watching my idea take form until a painting finally says “it” and I am surprised and delighted every time. I love sharing my art and knowing that someone is moved by it.
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Our many thanks to Skip's wife and artist Diane Santarella Lawrence who was the main organizer, the home studio curator and the person who brought Skip's art to the gallery. Could not have happened without all of her hard work.
–from the COMMA curators
Skip, the master artist
I see no hierarchy among realism, abstraction, and non-objective painting styles. The subjects that have inspired me to paint have changed many times in the course of my painting life. I originally gained recognition for my landscape paintings. Like many new watercolorists, I was excited by the medium’s ability to capture glowing light and subtle atmosphere, and the landscape is an endless source of material. However, I missed the expressive lushness of oil painting, so I started using watercolor as I do now, in a more direct, opaque way.
The freedom from the rules of traditional watercolor opened up endless expressive possibilities and subjects to me. Today I work in oil, acrylic, watercolor, drawing, ink, and every combination thereof. The common element is that my subjects are always something I care deeply about, something I am connected to emotionally.
I draw from a deep well of inspiration and admiration of many artists. I am inspired by Robert Motherwell for his freedom of mark and dedication to ideas, by Pierre Bonnard for his ability to surprise the viewer with the most familiar of subjects and for his gift with color, and by Richard Diebenkorn for fearless form and flat out beauty. The list goes on and on and includes many of my contemporaries and students as well.
Skip, the master teacher
Teaching, for me, is nothing more than sharing my experience with applying paint. And my experience has shown me that most of us are taught to spend too long learning how to paint before graduating to why we paint. Painting from an expressive idea allows us to evaluate our results, encourages exploration, and can lead to new possibilities. As a teacher, it is my desire and joy to help artists find out what it is that they want to say and to best say it in paint, in their unique way.
Biography
William B. “Skip” Lawrence (American, 1943- ), artist, teacher and author was born in Baltimore, MD in 1943 and grew up attending schools in How-ard County, MD. He received his B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art (1965) and his M.A. in Education from Towson State University, Baltimore, MD (1972). From 1965-1972, he taught in Howard County, MD. After leaving the public school system, he was persuaded to teach part-time at Prince George’s Community College near Washington DC. While teaching at Prince George College, Skip was also teaching privately. That original watercolor class at his studio in Laurel, MD had grown to hundreds of national and international workshops since 1976. He has taught hundreds of artists every year in his popular workshops, with many students loyally following him for decades.
Skip has had a consistent presence in the art education community of Western NY over the course of his long teaching career Skip’s many years as an academic art educator would shape his teaching style. Unlike many workshop teachers who focus on a technique, Skip has always taken a more holistic approach to educating the student to think like and grow as an artist, not just in form but in philosophy as well.
Skip retired from active teaching in 2023, but his video classes are available through Thinkific, https://skiplawrence.thinkific.com/
His classic watercolor tutorial DVD’s are available through Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff, www.cheapjoes.com
Skip is a member of the American Watercolor Society, who awarded him the High Winds Award. He is also a member of the Southern Watercolor Society and the Baltimore Watercolor Society. He was also the founder and contributing editor of The New Palette Magazine, a quarterly art publication that provided instruction for the watermedia painter which ran for over 25 years until 2022.
Skip’s book Painting Light & Shadow in Watercolor, 1994, has become a classic, appreciated by artists in every media. Skip’s fresh approach to composing paintings and emphasizing emotional quality over representation continues to inspire artists long after its original publication thirty years ago. It is available on Amazon.com
Over his long career Skip has exhibited regularly. His work has been represented in many galleries: Taos, NM, Santa Barbara, CA, Chestertown, MD, among others.
Skip lives in Mount Airy, MD, with his wife, artist Diane Santarella Lawrence, and their wonderpup, Viggo.
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William 'Skip' Lawrence
A Life in Art
Virtual Exhibition - Gallery 1
More from Skip -Gallery 2

























Very small works from Skip - Gallery 3





