Frederick William Lawrence wearied of painting with a brush seven years ago. He had won some water color prizes and done some portraits when he was a Canadian soldier in a British hospital. Afterward he got a job painting automobiles for the Pontiac experimental department, later for Oklahoma City's Pontiac dealer, Chieftain Motors, Inc. At this work he developed a fine handiness with the Duco spray gun. Finally the heavy-browed, muffin-faced War veteran undertook to use his spray gun to paint pictures.
Results were excellent. Lawrence found he could draw fine lines by holding the gun close to the composition board, get mass effects by using a wide, long-distance spray, achieve shadings by spraying one color over another. His specialties are mist, clouds and transparent effects. For difficult objects such as ships he uses stencils to draw the outlines; faces, houses, bridges, trees he sprays offhand. Top price for a Lawrence so far: $25. Last week the Pontiac publicity department took up Duco Artist Lawrence, as a well-turned favor to the du Ponts who make Duco and own almost a quarter of General Motors, which owns Pontiac.