Lauderdale in Art

Alison is a self taught amateur artist. She particularly enjoys urban sketching in central London and the local area. Her particular interest is in depicting the beauty of often overlooked locations from her local walks and cycle trips, urban nature and how people interact with their environment. Although it is closed currently due to Covid, she has an exhibition on at The Arthouse Cinema in Crouch End. This features drawings of local musicians mainly playing for free in local outdoor locations including driveways, parks and square during lockdown. Originally from Hertfordshire, Alison has lived in the local North London area (mainly Crouch End and Stroud Green for over 20 years.

Alison says: I knew Lauderdale House well, having attended many musical events there over the years, used the cafe and walked in Waterlow Park and surrounding areas. A few years ago I took part in a group exhibition at Lauderdale House with a local amateur art group. The three pictures I am submitting were all drawn on location during lockdown. 

Follow her on Instagram at @alison.gardiner.art / view her work here

Bill works in a range of materials including ink, watercolour, oil and pastel (chalk). He enjoys working plein air, using pen and watercolour wash to quickly capture the mood of a place. Bill trained at City Lit, Princes (now Royal) Drawing School, and the Yale Summer School of Art. He has exhibited at the Mall Galleries, St Johns Smith Square, Bankside Gallery, Burgh House (Hampstead), St Martin in the Fields, Barbican Library, Chelsea Town Hall and the Yale Summer School in the USA. His work is owned and enjoyed by clients in the UK, USA, Australia and Japan, and he has undertaken many commissions. Bill is co-founder and leader of Drawing London Group with 18 members and now in its 18th year.

You can listen to Bill talking about his ink drawing of a V&A interior on YouTube ‘Bill Open Open Social’. Also on YouTube there is a four minute ‘Drawing London Group Video’ introducing the group.

Bill says: Lauderdale House and Waterlow park hold a special place in my heart. Our son was born in Whittington Hospital next door and, having watched the birth, I wandered around Waterlow Park in a daze in the July sunshine! Over the years, we have attended weddings, parties and art shows at Lauderdale House. This painting was done when a group of us from Drawing London, limited in number because of COVID regulations, had one of our regular ‘last Friday of the month’ meetings, normally held every month in an interesting location in and around London.

Find Bill's website here / follow him on Instagram @nw3artist

Jacqueline was born in east London and grew up in Woodford, on the outskirts of Epping Forest, before moving to Archway in 2012. Coming from a large extended family, she has a strong sense of her roots and maintains a fondness for familiar, everyday environments – where we work and where we rest, the places we walk, the landmarks we pass, the animals and birds we share our lives with.

Following an art foundation at Central St Martins she began a career in graphic arts, launching a graphic design business in partnership in 2010, which continues to be successful. Her love for illustration has been reignited over the past year, when she has had time to be still and draw, taking inspiration from the local area on her daily walks.

Jacqueline says: I came to realise what a large part of myself was missing while I was not being creative in this way - and have not looked back. Working from initial observation sketches, I then develop my ideas in colour using various mediums such as gouache, emulsions, coloured pencils and inks. I continue to experiment with mediums and techniques, aiming to build a body of work in the years ahead.

Lauderdale House is a short walk from my home, and I visit the park each week. My best friend was married in the house in 2017, and I chose to paint this particular tree for her because it is her 'good karma' tree - we often give it a fondle!

Find Jacqueline's website here / follow her on Instagram @fox.feeder

Kristina Vasiljeva is a local illustrator based in Crouch End. A couple of years ago she started illustrating various local shopfronts (Crouch End, Highgate, Walthamstow village and others) as her way of supporting local businesses. This is something she still works on, alongside commissions and other projects.

Kristina says: This painting was completed back in July 2019, as part of the series commissioned by the Highgate Society. The series included five famous Highgate buildings and five illustrations of their owners/past owners. These were exhibited at The Highgate Society’s stand at the Fair in the Square, giving the visitors an opportunity to ‘match’ the famous resident with their famous house. Lauderdale House illustration was accompanied by an illustration of Nell Gwyn.

To Kristina, Lauderdale House was a familiar place even before the commission by The Highgate Society. She frequently comes to Waterlow Park for walks (although sadly has not been for a while at the moment due to the pandemic), and she has visited the Highgate Watercolour Group exhibition at the Lauderdale House before too.

Find Kristina's website here / follow her on Instagram @inkbetweenthelines

Miranda is a local artist; a landscape painter, designer & art tutor; and a member of Crouch End Open Studios. Her artwork explores the happy contrast between man-made geometric structures and the wild, fluid and irrepressible power of nature.

Miranda says: my early landscape paintings were inspired by my summers as Artist-in-Residence at a country house in Yorkshire and later by visiting heavy engineering works. Using oils/mixed media, I have tried to capture both the raw brutality of industry with its eroded textures as well as the poetic natural beauty of our local area and beyond: most recently, the distorting effects of borrowed light and reflections on water (a lake, a canal, a calm harbour or a vast coastline). I seek to capture the moment when luminosity and shadow lie in perfect harmony. Working and private art tutoring from home in Crouch End, my work has been shown in Yorkshire and London.

Living for over 3 decades in Crouch End, I have hugely enjoyed Lauderdale House & Waterlow Park over the years. I have shared art exhibitions at the house on several happy occasions with my art students and the peaceful beauty of its gardens and the park below have inspired my painting, especially the willow trees by the lakes.

Follow her on Instagram @mirandajwatsonart 

Sue attended Hornsey Art College in the early 1970s, going on to become a graphic designer. She recently moved back to Crouch End. She has known about and walked in Waterlow Park since the first time she lived in the area when she was a student. This image was painted in 2017 whilst Sue was attending a watercolour course at HLSI.

Janet has exhibited many times over the years, both on her own and with other local artists. This painting was exhibited at Lauderdale House in 2013. After the exhibition, she donated this painting to Lauderdale House and it was subsequently put in a raffle to raise money.

Janet is now a member of the Highgate Watercolour Group. She has been walking and sketching and painting in Waterlow Park for many years and has been a member of all the art classes that Lauderdale has been running over the years.

Kevin is an artist based in South East London. He took up watercolours when his friend Andrew began running watercolour workshops for Art Plumstead at Plumstead Community Market and Shrewsbury House several years ago.

Kevin says: I have a number of friends in North London and have been coming to the annual watercolour shows ever since Andrew joined the Highgate Watercolour Group in 2009. As I am often in the area, Waterlow Park is regularly included on our walking itinerary. This particular painting came about when my friend Pam came up from Wickhambreaux near Canterbury one weekend to see the show at Lauderdale House. She took herself up to the newly refurbished Long Gallery with a favourite book while we manned the desk. When we had finished we went up to find her. I was particularly struck with the Vermeer like the quality of the light slanting across the floor. It was a very calming image, too good to resist. I snapped her unawares while she sat totally absorbed in her book, enjoying the late autumn sunshine. I made the painting the next weekend.

Find Kevin's website here

Edmund Gordon has been a member of the Highgate Watercolour Group for a number of years. He has drawn with the Highgate Society Life Drawing Group since 1997. Born and brought up in Edinburgh, he is a graduate of Edinburgh University and attended classes at the College of Art there. A frequent visitor to Lauderdale House and Waterlow Park as a North London resident for decades he now lives in Highgate. Views of and from Lauderdale House and the park are a constant inspiration.

Follow Edmund on Instagram @edmund.gordon.97

Chris is currently co-chair of the Highgate Watercolour Group, and she tells us she gains so much inspiration from seeing the work her colleagues produce.

Chris says: I’ve always enjoyed making art but have only relatively recently discovered how much I love watercolours – in some ways an underrated medium - but one which can be subtle and vibrant. I came to classes at Lauderdale and was thrilled to be painting in the long gallery upstairs. Since I came to London I’ve enjoyed walking around Waterlow Park and painting and sketching there. 

Find Chris' website here / to find out more about the Highgate Watercolourist Group see their website here

Sue Lees has been a member of the Highgate Watercolour Group for around 20 years and is a long-standing Committee member and Treasurer.  She lives about ten minutes' walk away from Lauderdale House, and has painted in the gardens and park on many occasions.  She attended the popular portrait painting class in the House for many years.  She has been to many events in the House, and participated in the annual Highgate Watercolour Group exhibition in the House regularly. 

Sue says: This particular painting was begun in the summer of 2019 when the HWG had a sketching day in Waterlow Park, the view was irresistible.

Find Sue's website here / follow her on Instagram @suesymslees

Cathy has been a frequent visitor the Waterloo Park since her daughter was tiny.

Cathy says: We used to feed the ducks after my daughter's hospital treatment. I spent many years doing Life Drawing in the Long Gallery and only gave that up when the sessions changed to mornings and so no free parking! Of course now I’m a Highgate Watercolour Group committee member and joint Facebook editor and enjoy the yearly exhibitions in the autumn.

You can email her here / follow her on Instagram @cathywatercolours

Sue is a local artist and part of our Lauderdale House Watercolour & Acrylic class, run by the wonderful Sharon Finmark.

Brenda is a local artist and part of our Lauderdale House Watercolour & Acrylic class, run by the wonderful Sharon Finmark.

Brenda says: The two paintings were painted in 2017. The wall I did during Sharon's art class in the garden, whilst the tree is from a photo I took on my way to a class. I have been coming to Waterlow Park ever since my mother used to bring me when I was a small child, over the years visiting the House for exhibitions and events. I joined Sharon's watercolour class about four years ago, learning new skills and making new friends.

Marc is a local artist based in Crouch End. His work mostly explores the green spaces in North London that he has a personal connection with.

Marc says: I'm especially interested in close observation of detail and colour in landscapes and how nature fits into our urban lives. I'm a regular visitor to Waterlow Park and it always provides a constant source of inspiration.

This art work was created in 2020, with coloured pencil on cardboard.

Follow Marc on Instagram @marc.j.southey

Avigail is a self taught artist with a passion for nature. She recently began working for the conservation charity Heath Hands and donates 20% of her sales of landscape paintings to their vital work.

Avigail says: I've been a visitor to Waterlow Park for years and exhibited art at Lauderdale House. I prefer goauche, watercolour and water based oils which have a gentler effect on the environment. I always bring my sketchbook along and this painting is a small scale study of the unique landscape of Waterlow Park painted in watercolour in January 2021.

Find Avigail's website here / follow her on Instagram at @thesensitivescribbler 

Lindy is a local artist and part of our Lauderdale House Watercolour & Acrylic class, run by the wonderful Sharon Finmark.

Lindy says: I have known Lauderdale House and Waterlow Park since coming to live in Highgate in 1967. I have always had an interest in drawing and painting since my school days, but for many years work, children and family prevented any sustained active participation. In 2017, a while after I retired, I joined Sharon Finmark's watercolour and acrylic painting class and found a lively and friendly group. I have enjoyed painting in the garden and park around Lauderdale House. I also particularly enjoy painting pictures of people, often when they are engaged in activities.

Andrew worked for over 20 years as an Illustrator after graduating from Hornsey College of Art. He joined Highgate Watercolour Group in 2009 and has exhibited annually at their Lauderdale House show.

Sadly, in 2020 this was cancelled, so Andrew painted an imagined view of the house on our Private View evening, which he and the group are eagerly anticipating in 2021. 

Andrew is now Co-Chair of the Highgate Watercolour Group and also runs Watercolour Workshops.

Find their website here 

Jennifer Horne-Roberts is a longstanding member of the HLSI Art class. She paints many Highgate scenes and family portraits in both oils and watercolour.

She is a Barrister practicing from her Chambers in the Temple in both Civil and Family Law.

A Trustee of the Harington and also a writer and poet, she lives locally with her Architect husband Keith.