Lauren Marcott

Lauren Marcott has sketched since first grade, but only in the last few years has she worked in color.  In school she studied crafts and played around with pencil portraits. During summers she taught among the unique perspectives and color of the Southwestern desert, before traveling and working in East Asia and Europe, always sketching.   She retired from the U.S. State Department in 2007, after serving in London, Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as various places in Washington.

In the last few years she’s traveled with her husband to Jordan, Japan, Turkey, and Central Europe, and has driven several times across the US.  She visits her daughter and granddaughter in Paris and Jerusalem, as well as New England in summer and Florida in winter — hence the bistros, seashells, sailboats, canyons, and lighthouses that populate many of her paintings.

Since she retired, she’s taken on watercolor, at least in part because of its ability to capture the light in objects – and because it has a mind of its own.   She studied watercolor at the Smithsonian, at the Arlington Arts Alliance, with Arlington Adult Education and most recently the Art League.  She is a member of the Potomac Valley Watercolorists, the Arlington Artists Alliance and the Gallery Underground.