My First Painting in 17 Years - Uluru

Yesterday I went to a painting class held by Rod Moore's Art School. It was fantastic!

I hadn't picked up a paint brush since High School (17 years ago), not to mention that I'd never used oil paints or painted on a canvas before.

Rod (an impressionist artist) showed us step-by-step how to paint our painting of Uluru (Ayers Rock). We learnt many different techniques like drawing the eye into the painting, values, depth etc. And even though we were all painting the same scene everyone's work was unique.

I think my first effort turned out pretty good.

I thoroughly enjoyed painting and I think this will be something that I will continue to do.

How Cool is Tilt and Shift?

Those photos that look like they're of a model village (but really they're not) absolutely blow me away. I could stare at them for hours (sigh).

I did a bit of googling on how the look is achieved. It's called the "Tilt and Shift" effect. I use both Photoshop Elements and Lightroom and after a LOT of hits and misses, I found the perfect instructions! You can find them here. The way it's done in Lightroom is SO easy.

Here is a photo I took in Venice last year...

...and with a little bit of Lightroom magic...

Not bad for a first go :)