Buildings
China Lily
Lee’s Food Products was located at 1233 Queen Street East in Leslieville from 1947, when they employed 50 people, until 2020. The company sold the building to a developer and has transferred their operation to a facility in Scarborough, taking their sign with them. In...
Cowes Harbour
From the heights of Castle Road there is a grand view of the backs of the buildings in the High Street and of the harbour, where racing boats head out towards the Medina River and East Cowes. SIZE: 8.25” X 10.5” MEDIUM: PEN DRAWING DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Busigny
Busigny Guest House, a listed building, is on the hill above the High Street and Cowes Harbour. The lady who owned it at the time of this drawing, Cynthia, had a magnificent garden and a collection of Devon Rex cats. SIZE: 8.25” X 10.5” MEDIUM: PENCIL DRAWING DIGITAL...
Telly, Stoke Newington
An unnaturally shallow television sporting a jug of chrysanthemums in front of the window in Farleigh Road. SIZE: 12” X 8.25” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $250 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Tim And Clare’s
The view from Tim and Clare’s Cowes house looking over the rooftops towards the Solent. SIZE: 10.5” X 8”” MEDIUM: PENCIL DRAWING DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
West End Lane Gazebo
View of the brand new garden in West End Lane and the backs of houses in Priory Road, NW6. SIZE: 12.5” X 8” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $250 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Victoria Road, Cowes
The ramshackle but cosy workers’ cottages off Cowes Parade were the perfect places to stay during Cowes week. This one had a one-clawed lobster hanging in pride-of-place on the dining room wall. On the wall under the lobster there was a small framed statement saying...
Trees, Arching Houses
The back garden at Mazenod Avenue, West Hampstead. This painting was featured in the Guardian U.K. newspaper. SIZE: 12.5” X 8.5” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Sherbourne And Dundas
The northeast corner of Sherbourne and Dundas Streets in 1977 when that corner was a car park across the street from George’s Spaghetti House. The blue Valiant and the red Volkswagen Beetle belonged to David Strachan, a member of our household at 248 Sherbourne. SIZE:...
Rubbish Bins,Mazenod Avenue
The street outside the flat in Mazenod Avenue when the pink chestnuts in Quex Road were in blossom. SIZE: 12.5” X 17.75” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $250 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Giudecca
The old Jewish quarter in Venice on a spring day in 1983. SIZE: 12” X 9” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $250 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Authorized Parking Only
The funky huddle of vine clad, rusted metal structures around the old coach house at Queen Street and Coxwell Avenue was one of the arcane delights of Leslieville. Recherché and mildly feral, it was bound to be demolished by people who neither recognized or valued its...
Kensington Mews
A bedroom at the back of the flat in the grand, dilapidated four storey house in Queensgate Terrace afforded this view of Georgian coach houses. SIZE: 8.5" X 11" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
From My Room
A bedroom at the back of the flat in Queensgate Terrace afforded this funky view. The rag and bone man could occasionally be seen from the bedroom window with his horse and cart in the laneway, calling for customers to come out. SIZE: 11.5" X 8.50" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR...
Allitson Road With Chimney Pots
View of the buildings across Allitson Road from our flat over the bank in St. John's Wood High Street. SIZE: 16.5" X 11 .75" MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
The Graham House, 1907
The two semi-detached houses at 1327 and 1329 Queen Street East were built by William J. Hewitt in 1906-07 for John Coatsworth Graham, a prominent ice and coal dealer and prize-winning athlete whose son, Emerson sat in City council and whose daughter, Ella Maud...
Bryn’s Room
There were two doors opening onto the balcony at 54 Queensgate Terrace. One from the sitting room and one from Bryn's bedroom. The objects in the room integrate with the reflection in the glass of the buildings across the street and the sky to the south. This painting...
The Ashbridge Estate
Sarah Ashbridge travelled from Pennsylvania to Upper Canada with her family in the spring of 1793. They purchased a large block of land east of the present day Greenwood Avenue. Their land ran from the lakeshore to just north of Danforth Avenue. Theirs was the fourth...
Dunbarton
In 1832 William Dunbar laid out a town site near the Kingston Road which was later relocated and called Fairport/Dunbarton. When the Grand Trunk Railway arrived it passed close enough to warrant a station. In time the area around the station developed into the village...
Bowmanville
This house on Wellington Street in Bowmanville was built in the high Victorian style. Over the years additions in various other styles were added. The original house was a simple one-and-a-half storey Georgian structure built by Marshal Porter, who emigrated from...
Hogarth
The main portion of this Riverdale home was built in 1875 by Thomas Hogarth, principal of York Township School. In 1882 he sold it to his daughter Elinora Heys and her husband, who added the north wing and verandah. It remained in the Heys family until 1964 when it...
Gooderham and Worts Flatiron Building
The Gooderham and Worts "Flatiron" Building was constructed in 1892 by George Gooderham in the French Modern Gothic style. The building housed the offices of Gooderham and Worts, which George Gooderham built into a vast financial and commercial empire. Gooderham’s own...
Maple Cottage
Maple Cottage is one of the few intact examples of a traditional Ontario workers’ cottage in Toronto. According to legend, the silver maple that stood in front of it inspired the song by Alexander Muir, ”The Maple Leaf Forever.” In 2013 the tree was blown over in a...
The Blackburn Barn
Polygonal buildings originated with the eccentric American author, Orson Squire Fowler, who wrote on a variety of subjects, including phrenology: the study of bumps on the head. He made a fortune from sales of his sex manual, which he published in the 1840s. In 1849...
Meadowvale
Meadowvale Village became Ontario’s first heritage village in the late 1980s. The buildings were restored through grants and loans available to homeowners at the time. The original settlement started in 1831 with two sawmills and a carding mill. By 1880 the village...
Streetsville Railway Station
The Credit Valley Railway was completed in 1879 with the first train departing from Streetsville junction on September 19th. The building’s overhanging roof provided shelter for the passengers while the turret served as an office, offering a clear view of the tracks...
Rosemont Schoolhouse
Union School, No. 17 Mono Township was constructed in 1890 just west of the village of Rosemont. It was a two room school built on the land of a farmer, William McNabb. In 1968, when the new Mulmur-Mono school opened, Union School No. 17 closed it‘s doors. The...
Unionville Congregational Church
In 1879, the Unionville members of the Congregational Church built a new building to replace and amalgamate the meeting places in Markham and Unionville. The new church was designed by Casa Loma architect, Edward Lennox. The land was donated by the Braithwaite family....
Levellands
While doing research for the Toronto Real Estate Board calendar the heritage officer for Richmond Hill asked Laura to paint a picture of a house in his area that had significant historic value but was still threatened with demolition. The house, Levellands, had been...
Casa Loma
Toronto’s famous castle was designed by Edward Lennox for the wealthy Sir Henry Pellat, who received a knighthood for building the first Canadian generating station at Niagara Falls. The Pellat family lived at Casa Loma from 1914 to 1923. For a time the castle was...
2 Wellesley Place
In 1899 Rupert and Frances Simpson commissioned architect Charles Gibson to design this Richardsonian Romanesque style house at 2 Wellesley Place in Toronto. Having recently inherited the Toronto Knitting and Yarn Factory, they built what one historian has dubbed “The...
Triple House
When the owners of this unique house bought the original log cabin in Shelburne, Ontario and moved it to Caledon they were told that zoning reqirements demanded structures with more square footage. They decided to buy two additional buildings and join them all...
Metcalfe Street
A row of Late nineteenth century traditional Toronto Bay and Gable houses with decorative wood and masonry details in Cabbagetown. SIZE: 12" X 8" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $250 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
John Denham Gallery
The artist showed her work at the John Denham Gallery in Mill Lane in the 1990s. Mr. Denham asked her to paint a picture of the gallery for use as a post card. She sat on a camping chair on the north side of Mill Lane to paint this picture. SIZE: 16" X 12" MEDIUM:...
In Step
St. John’s Wood High Street from the flat above the bank. Around the time this watercolour was painted, the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher did a walkabout in St. John’s Wood High Street. The artist watched her walkabout at close range from the same window. The...
East End Garden Centre
The East End Garden Centre opened its doors for business in 1981 on Queen Street East in an old two bedroomed cottage that had been moved from the nearby Ashbridge Estate. In 1992 the recently widowed owner, Theresa Tate, affectionately called “Mother Tate” by the...
Sackville Street
Painting of a green Volkswagen Beetle parked in Sackville Street, Cabbagetown, Toronto. The painting was purchased by the Agent General of Ontario House, England. Ontario House ceased to exist in 1993. Last heard of, the painting was hanging in the Royal Institute of...
Janneaux Offices, Condom
Laura painted this watercolour over 12 days in late October in Condom, France. The weather was quite chilly and when it started to rain after a couple of days the proprietor of her hotel kindly offered the use of one of the parasols with a stone base that they used to...
Allitson Road
A view of the roof tops and the chimneypots of Allitson Road from the third floor bedroom at the flat over the bank in St. John’s Wood High Street. SIZE: 14" X 22" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR ORIGINAL SOLD FINE ART PRINT $330 DIGITAL LICENSE...
205 Yonge Street
Designed by EJ Lennox and built in 1905, it was originally a Bank of Toronto building and for a time was the home of the Toronto Historical Board. Next to it at 197 Yonge Street is another historic building. The Colonial Tavern stood between them before it was...
Amelia Street
A house in Amelia Street in Toronto’s Cabbagetown. The original photograph that this painting was based on was taken with Laura’s mother’s camera whose lens happily warped every subject and did wonderfully strange things with colours. SIZE: 18 X 11" MEDIUM:...
Number 52
52 Queensgate Terrace was part of a Georgian Terrace in Kensington where Laura lived when she first moved to England. The other residents of the flat were classical musicians. They lived on an upper floor of the Georgian town house at 54 Queensgate Terrace. Laura...
BMW 2002 Tii luxe
Laura’s favourite car parked outside the flat in Mazenod Avenue across the road from St. Mary Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The car was the first in a string of BMWs that got progressively newer and more staid. St. Mary's Sacred Heart Church was the biggest Catholic...