Self-taught artist, Laurie Eastwood was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. She loved art early in her life and believes that given the right encouragement and environment, all people possess an innate desire and ability to create and can achieve their goals. Laurie comes from an artistic family and this has helped to develop her creativity and curiosity. Before she realized that she most desired to be on the creative end of art production, she originally worked selling advertising in the art industry. In 1990 Laurie resigned her job to pursue her aspiration to create an art form to enrich life. She became a full time artist and began a journey that she feels is more fulfilling. Her desire to be independent and to work as an artist led her to the process of hand tinting black-and-white photographs with special oil paints. Even though this is an old technique, it enables her to produce her spectacular images.
The technique was created before photography was sophisticated enough to be developed with color film. Laurie is thrilled looking at the transformation to a color print from black and white, as her paints add warmth and fine detail to the photograph. Laurie’s first images were vegetables and fruits photographed against natural surroundings such as slate, wood and brick. She has since added landscapes, architectural images and flowers. Many of the backgrounds are in her home at the base of Mt Diablo in Northern California. Laurie feels the result is an elegant image, slightly nostalgic and richly detailed, subtle in textures and color; she hopes to evoke a European’s old-world look with romantic beauty and recognizable images.
