Packing and Painting

There are two things that an experienced traveler does in the days before leaving for England: pack and learn to paint. Since I'm already pretty good at packing, I decided to go ahead and learn to paint first, then pack.

On Saturday I attended a painting demo by Craig Srebnik in his Santa Fe studio. He's entertaining, a great teacher, talented, and inspirational. He makes it look so easy that I'm ready to start packing already. When I get back from England I'll check into signing up for one of the painting classes he offers.

I'll pass along a professional tip he gave us: use cheap brushes, because then when you look at a painting that's beyond your ability, you can say "Sure, but he used expensive brushes. I could do that too if I had good brushes." Brilliant! (as they say in jolly olde England)


Craig Srebnik starts a painting by drawing a baseline on a used canvas that has a figure drawing already on it (turned sideways). The large digital monitor on the left displays a photo he took in France, to use as reference for the new painting.


Srebnik uses burnt umber color thinned with turpentine to quickly add basic construction lines and dark areas to the composition.


This monotone underpainting establishes the dark and light values and the composition of the painting. He makes many changes from the photographic reference material, and paints in middle tones and light tones.


One and a half hours later the underpainting is finished. That's the end of the demo, so I'll assume the final color version will look fabulous (because all of his paintings look fabulous).

I can't wait to do this myself, although I'm still a fan of digital paint (more on that later). At least now I can pack.

My Life Is Going To Shambles

But that's a good thing. I'm going to England for Christmas to visit Robin for a couple of weeks during her Brunel University holiday break.

Between December 22 and 26 we're staying in York. A two hour train ride north of London, York is reportedly one of the most picturesque towns in England, and Shambles Street is one of the most picturesque streets in York.

The history of York dates back to the first century AD. The York Minster (the Cathedral) was completed in 1244, and its history goes back many centuries before that.


Shambles Street in York

I leave on December 15 and arrive in London the morning of the 16th. Meanwhile, I'll dust the cobwebs off this blog site and post a few practice blogs to be up to speed and in good blogging-shape when it's time to leave.

Final Oxford images and that's a wrap.

I'm really glad I got to see Oxford before I had to leave England. Here are some final images.


Lots of alleys, sidestreets, and hidden places to explore in Oxford.


Chairs in the lobby of the Oxford Castle Hotel.


A hallway in the old castle prison. The doors in the hall are to small cells. The gift shop at the end of the hall probably wasn't there at the time.


Lunch at Piemasters, a fast-food place in a busy indoor market, in downtown Oxford. I had the Chicken of Aragon with potatoes, gravy, and mashed peas.


We met Lynn, Robin's former tutor at Merton College, at the college where she teaches full time, Regent's Park. Robin and Lynn walk through the school's quad on the way to Lynn's office.


The Regent's Park quad.


We could use a few of these in downtown Santa Fe.


We stopped at The Randolph, a 5 Star hotel, to have a cider. This guy claimed to be a musician (an organist, I think) who'd just been recognized and cheered at some event. Besides being cheered, he was also drunk as a skunk, alternately spewing BS and almost falling asleep. As you can see, he invited himself over to our table. He tried to leave without paying for his drink, which he just snatched off the tray of a passing waiter. When the bartender insisted that he had to pay for his drink, he wrote a check but the writing was totally illegible scribbles.


Cider at the Randolph.


The Randolph Hotel.A TED conference was held here a couple of summers ago while Robin was studying at Merton College. She ran into some long-time Mac friends who were in Oxford for the conference.


William Herbert watches over the Bodleian Library.


The building where Oxford graduates get their degree has a circular courtyard, surrounded by busts with almost cartoonish faces. We'll have to ask Robin to get the inside story on this one.


All of the busts have bugged out, popping eyes, and mouths agape. Very cool indeed.


Farewell to Oxford, now one of my favorite college towns.


Ivy at Regent's Park College.

More Oxford

Oxford is actually a time travel portal. Sometimes you can see through the thin veil of time that - hey look!


Cemetery and bicycles.


Robin enters the Bodleian Library courtyard.


The statue on the other side of the courtyard is William Herbert.


Around the courtyard perimeter are doors, entrances to different areas of knowledge. This door is labeled SCHOLA METAPHYSICAE.


This door is labeled SCHOLA GRAMMATICAE ET HISTORIAE.


You've heard of The Ivory Towers of Academia? This is them. Really. I'm not kidding.


Oxford Castle dates back to around 1100. It later became a prison, and now a luxury hotel. Some parts of the castle and prison are left as they were for tours. Most of the rooms are now hotel rooms.

Oxford - Universities Galore

Oxford is a fascinating place. I'd imagined a sleepy little village with some ivy-covered towers. Instead, imagine a small town with approximately 40 universities, world-renowned libraries and museums, and street crowds that look like a busy day at Disneyland. Robin says it's good to be here now, because it really gets busy in the summer. This is the Friday before classes start, so lots of students are just arriving.

Universities grew rapidly here starting in 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.


Ye olde downtown street scene.


Another ye olde street scene.


Ye olde Oxford mother with children.


From the bus window: ye olde tavern.


One of the lanes that connects a maze of small cobblestone streets, near Merton College, where Robin has attended summer classes.


William Herbert, son of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. This statue is in the courtyard of the world-famous Bodleian Library.


The dining hall at Merton College. Looks kind of Harry-Potterish, doesn't it? Robin has had many meals here at Hogwarts - I mean Merton College.

Brunel to Heathrow, Heathrow to Albuquerque

Aaahhh. Nothing like being the first (and only) people walking across the Brunel campus a 5:15 in the morning. Robin walked me to the U3 Heathrow Central bus stop in the middle of the campus, to catch the 5:24. I started getting nervous when 6:00am rolled around, but finally, bus headlights appeared. Thanks, Robin, for waiting with me.

The bus trip took about 30 minutes, winding through small towns (and I really mean "winding") and traffic circles. No more than a half dozen riders that early in the morning.

At the Heathrow Central bus station there's a tube station that connects to all terminals. Thank goodness the signage is excellent and it was relatively easy to get to my gate destination (easy, except for my two overstuffed carry-on bags, full of clothes, cameras, laptop, external hard drive, cables, adapters, batteries, battery chargers, and other random devices and accessories).

Everything went smoothly until, at take-off time, the pilot announced that flight control was having problems and there would be at least a 4-hour delay. That sounds bad enough, but the "at least" part was pretty freaky, especially considering a non-delayed flight is going to take 8 hours to get to Houston. I wanted to call Robin, but I'd taken the SIM card out of my iPhone, and I didn't have a pin or anything small enough to use to eject the SIM card holder, so I could re-insert it. I asked the woman next to me if she had a pin. She said no, but then said "Wait, try this." She took the earring out of her ear and I was able to use the pointed stud to eject the SIM card holder, then call Robin and tell her what was happening.

I was very relieved when, one and a half hours later the pilot announced that we could leave Heathrow. The almost two hour delay meant I'd miss my Albuquerque connection in Houston, but Continental automatically rebooked me on a later flight and sent an email notification to Robin. When I got to Houston, I called her and she told me the good news as I stood in a looooong Customs line at Bush International, Houston.

I'm sitting at the Albuquerque gate in Houston International now, three hours early. But the hard part of the trip is over.

Update: I arrived back home around 9 pm to a warm welcome from Rosetta and Pumpkin, who had lots of nice stories about the nice people that had been here taking good care of them for the past two weeks. We talked for hours before going to sleep.

Thanks Jim'Bo and Janet for a job well done.

I'll post some more Oxford photos today, and soon I'll post a blog address for Robin, as she keeps us updated on An American At Brunel.

A great time in Oxford

Oxford is really interesting. A very cool place. We got there around noon, after a very short tube ride and a very pleasant bus ride. I'll blog some photos and details later, but before I go pack my bags, I just want to say what a great visit we had with Robin's former Oxford tutor, Lynn, and her family, husband Neil and son James. We met Lynn around 5pm near Regent's Park, the college where she teaches. After showing us around, we took a bus to the Park & Ride, then she drove us to her village, Long Hanborough, for dinner at her house, which Neil had prepared (minced meat and potatoes, his specialty). Delicious. Loved it. Better than any meal so far. In addition to the great meal, we had a great visit, and reluctantly said goodbye. Neil was supposed to drop us off at the bus stop so we could catch the bus back to Hillingdon, then catch the tube to Uxbridge, then walk from Uxbridge to Brunel. Once in the car he informed us he was driving us all the back to Brunel, with some lame excuse that he wanted to show us where he works, close to Uxbridge.

You're a prince, Neil. We owe you one - or several. I hope we get to even up with you. Thanks for a memorable evening - and everything else.


Lynn. A friend and sweetheart.


Henry (another sweetheart) and Neil.


James. A super nice, cool guy, and fun to talk to.


Henry, a Mastif-Golden mix, loves his family.