Julie Betts Testwuide
After a successful career in corporate and sport photography, Julie Betts Testwuide turned to fine art in search of a new outlet for her creative expression. Not content with the strict lines and hyperrealism of traditional photography, she has developed a technique that yields what she calls "painterly photographs."
Focusing on the creation of timeless images inspired by the Impressionists, rural landscapes and the sea, Testwuide first opens herself to the world around her as she waits for the subject to make itself known. After taking a snapshot with an old Polaroid camera from the 1960s, Testwuide manipulates the print with a cuticle stick forcing the surface to become more abstract. An iris print of the photograph is then created on watercolor paper. She finally draws on the image with pastels or pencils until it hardly resembles a photograph at all.
