Two dolls face each other in a small dairy bottle. They were unearthed in a garden in Leslieville in 1976. Who buried them there? SIZE: 10.5” X 8.25” MEDIUM: PENCIL DRAWING DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Still Life
Peacock Feathers
This is one of Laura’s first oil paintings. The pewter pitcher was among many Dutch pewter items belonging to the Marks family provided by a close family friend from Holland. SIZE: 20" X 16" MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE...
Two Windows
The imperfections of the 120 year old window glass serve to amplify the appearance of frenetic energy in the angular branches of the trees outside the window. Those shapes are echoed by the flowers in the jug on the counter and their shadows, the rims of the light...
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
Elton’s Instruments
Saxophonist, Elton Dean’s piano and his jacket slung over the chair, among other items in the sitting room of his flat in Farleigh Road. SIZE: 10.5” X 8” MEDIUM: INK DRAWING DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Baby Shoes
Marcia’s red baby shoes, an apple jug containing coleus leaves rooting in water and an old beloved table lamp. SIZE: 13 .75” X 10” MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING FINE ART PRINT $250 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Typewriter
It was a photograph in a magazine. The white wicker, the cream pitcher full of flowers, the dark portrait, the ancient typewriter and the overgrown vegetation outside the window made the scene memorable. SIZE: 7.5” X 5” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $75 DIGITAL...
Two Bowls
Small painting of two Chinese bowls. SIZE: 5.5” X 9” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $75 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Tea And Oranges
White china tea things, oranges, a banana and apples on a wooden cutting board with an ornately cast silver spoon. Reminiscent of Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne, who feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China. SIZE: 12:5” X 18.5” MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL...
Still Life With Fan
The white porcelaine statue of Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, stands in front of a fan with a plant on a striped cloth. Outside the window it’s winter. SIZE: 14” X 10” MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Still Life With Dead Rose
The wine - was it port? - was long gone before the bottle held the rose that died there. Lined up with blue mug and sugar bowl to the left and brown bowl containing an apple and an orange on the right. Painted in apartments in the Hampton Mansions, Winchester Street,...
Still Life With Carnations And Grapes
Red grapes lie in a silver gravy boat beside a gilded crystal wine goblet containing a white and a red carnation, with a white carnation lying on its own. SIZE: 8.5” X 8.5” MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Still Life With Fruit and Candlesticks
In the dim light of a glass lamp three apples, two pears and a pair of ceramic candlesticks sit on a printed silk scarf. SIZE: 18” X 14” MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Plant And Bird
The long vines of the houseplant, the telephone wires outside the window and the vertical pattern of the wallpaper below the table define the grid motif in this composition. The plant’s leaves echo the shape of the bird’s beak and tail. SIZE: 17.5” X 12.5” MEDIUM:...
Singapore Doll
A barefoot doll wearing a Chilba hat and silk jacket from Singapore. The pillow cover is decorated with an Indian hand block print. The doll and the pillow sit on an oak chair with leather upholstery. SIZE: 16” X 18” MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE...
Flowers and Hose
An explosion of colourful flowers cribbed from the covers of seed packets stands in a blaze of whiteness beside a hose reel cart. SIZE: 13.25” X 21” MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR ORIGINAL SOLD FINE ART PRINT $330 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Cello
While the cellist takes a break from practising, her instrument leans on a light blue, chrome legged dinette chair. The chair is draped with a forest green coat and matching pillow. The bow balances there. The studio is in the garret of the house in Sherbourne Street....
Ashport Avenue
A plant, a watering can, an oval mirror on the floor reflecting the hallway and the top of the stairs, the easel, a knee and the door at the end of the hallway. In the foreground is the Wilton carpet that was a second hand find on Parliament Street. SIZE: 17.5” X...
Humpty Dumpty
A wooden Humpty Dumpty with hinged legs sits in the window of an antique shop in Niagara Falls, Ontario. SIZE: 20” X12.75" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $330 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Impala
The gigantic beaded cranberry glass lamp is surrounded by smaller lamps, clocks and portraits in oval frames, all dominated by the sensual form of the Impala as it bursts out of the wall. SIZE: 17.75" X 13" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART PRINT $330 DIGITAL LICENSE...
For More Than Money Can Buy
The fireplace in the dining room with its marble mantelpiece and the cast iron hearth was one of the nicest features of the flat in West End Lane. The papier-maché London bus on top of the mantel had come off the back of the motorbike when rounding a curve in Park...
Bedroom, St. John’s Wood
The bedroom in the garret overlooking the High Street had an early 1950s feel for 1982. The plastic parrot that was a mascot from Cambridge, the wine bottle lamp, the carriage clock, the Turkish table runner, the package of Camels unfiltered and all the other articles...
Archives
During the winter of the Polar Vortex of 2015, Laura shivered in the draughty coach house behind Queen Street to paint this amazing room whose existence was known by very few people. All manner of arcane objects were artfully arranged, from taxidermy owl, cat and...
Golden Wedding
Sunflowers and Irises in a Dartington vase painted for a Golden Wedding anniversary present. SIZE: 21" X 14" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR ORIGINAL SOLD FINE ART PRINT: $330 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Lobster
In a house that the artist and friends rented during Cowes week one year the owners had varnished the one-clawed body of a lobster and mounted it on their sitting room wall over a plaque which read: “What a feast! Our wedding feast Friday April 23 What a feast!” SIZE:...
Dante Takes A Trip #1
Painted especially for a group show at the Francis Kyle Gallery in Mayfair. The theme of the exhibition was the first book of Dante’s Inferno where Dante is lost in the forest and Virgil appears descending from a mountain to be his guide. Laura took the different...
London Pride
A plastic bottle of London Pride sits in front of a window in Cowes, Isle of Wight. SIZE: 12" X 8" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR ORIGINAL SOLD DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
Cranberries
Cranberries in a blue pottery bowl on a blue and white gingham cloth. Cranberries evoke warm memories of the festivies of Thanksgiving and Christmas when they are prepared as a condiment to be served with roast turkey. SIZE: 5.25" X 12" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR FINE ART...
Living Room, Broadview
The apartment on Broadview Avenue, which had a turret facing the street was a bit like stepping into an earlier age since it was furnished with grandparents' belongings, but the telephone on the bookcase was actually contemporary at the time of this drawing. SIZE:...
Carnations and Freesias
Carnations in a large Dartington crystal vase beside Freesias in a smaller glass vase. The shadows on the wall are cast by two lights stacked vertically on a pole. SIZE: 30" X 31" MEDIUM: OIL PAINTING FINE ART PRINT: $540 DIGITAL LICENSE AVAILABLE
The Dictionary of Drink and Drinking
The painting is named after the red book on the left. The turquoise colour of the dresser, in the embroidered cloth and in the covers of some of the books combined with the red in the books, the apples and some of the embroidery in the cloth makes this a striking and...
Dolls
The five dolls were an intrinsic part of Laura’s early life. Her older brother Danny invented stories using the dolls as characters. One of the dolls was placed in the linen closet, supposedly on its way to Boston by train. Strangely, it stayed in Boston. SIZE: 18" X...
Peacock Feathers – pencil drawing
Preparatory pencil sketch for the oil painting of the same name. It's interesting that despite the fact the subject matter is identical, the feel of the painting is so different to the drawing because of the painting's intense colours. SIZE: 13" X 10.5” MEDIUM: PENCIL...
Gadabout
This creepy doll was rented from the fascinating vintage shop, “Gadabout” in Queen Street E. Toronto, hence the name of the painting. SIZE: 15" X 12" MEDIUM: oil ORIGINAL SOLD
Parrot and Connaught Rangers Bowl
The plastic parrot was the subject of several paintings. Where it once must have had legs, only holes were left, so the artist used pencils in the holes to compensate for the lost legs to enable it to stand. The silver “Connaught Rangers Bowl” was a sailing trophy won...
Pumpkins
Laura’s Belgian friends grew these pumpkins in their garden at Elversele and brought them as a gift when they came to stay in West End Lane. Once the painting was finished they did a second tour of duty as an element of a meal. SIZE: 9" X 11.5" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR...
Radio
An old valve radio on a dresser with a brass coffee pot, plants, a bottle of gone but not forgotten wine and a postcard in the bedroom at St. John’s Wood. A fish eye mirror in a brass frame reflects the window and ceiling light. SIZE: 20" X 16" MEDIUM: WATERCOLOUR...
Still Life with Delft and Mirror
A Delft shoe and trinket box that always stood on the artist’s mother’s dresser holding bits of jewelery, safety pins and buttons. The desk belonged to Laura's father. The exaggerated perspective of the window reflected in the mirror gives the image a sense of other...
Strange Fruit Number 1
A collection of fruit on a plate on a Turkish tablecloth from Istanbul. The twisted perspectives, the reflection of the cloth on the underside of the plate, the mounted swordsmen around the border of the cloth and the appearance of the plate hovering over the cloth...
Volver 88
Volver is the name of a Tango Cancion written by Carlos Gardel in 1935. The song is about the poignant return of a man to his childhood home in the hope and the fear that he may find his first love still there. Laura learned this song during her mother’s last illness....
Dahlias
The cabinet originally contained an old valve radio that belonged to the Marks family. When Laura returned to Canada from England she found it upside down in a garage with one leg broken and the veneer lifting. It cleaned up pretty well. The yellow vase came from The...
Broken Glass
While en route to Ishgl, Austria, from London in 1987, the artist was deported from France because at the time Canadians required a visa. While returning to Dover in the ferry from Calais Laura bought a bottle of Janneau Armagnac as consolation for the inconvenience...
Monkey & Parrot
The monkey was found in the attic of a house in Islington, North London beside a stack of pornographic magazines, wearing women's lingerie. It reverted to its natural state (sans panties, bra and garter belt) and traveled with its new owner from Islington to Great...