Update 6/5

Well due to the lack of internet and being extremely busy I have not been able to update this! I just got internet on my laptop for the first time since being in Italy and I am going to try and update the past week soon, so sorry for the lack of updates. But I am in Italy now and it is wonderful, I was in Venice yesterday and loved it. I will update more soon!

Thursday 5/20

Well now it is Thursday and I am finally caught up on this blogging! We met this morning at 9 then dispersed at about 10 and I have been blogging since, it's now 12:40. So you get the idea. Today we have a critique over 2 photos that were due this morning, so I am exciting to see how mine due. I was happy with the two I chose I think, but I haven't taken any photos I have been absolutely crazy about. Then after that we are free for the weekend! I am headed to London tomorrow morning for the day and coming back late Friday night. I'm planning to just explore London more and shop some then some of us are seeing The Lion King at the theatre, so that should be fun. I remember seeing it when I was in like 5th grade whenever we went to New York, so I am excited to see it again and maybe appreciate it more. Then on Saturday I think I am going to Bath, or Whales, or something, not totally sure yet. But I'm looking forward to the weekend! Well I hope everyone is doing well. And I hope some people are actually reading this because it took near 3 hours to catch this thing up! Ok, I'm done blogging for today! Love and miss everyone, hope you enjoy reading the blog!

Also here's some stuff to check out:

My Flickr

Group's Flickr

Group Blog

Wednesday 5/19

Wednesday was our set photography day. We started the day with a tour through Oxford by one of the professors who is here year round. It was very interested, there is so much history in this one city. We saw were some scenes for Harry Potter were filmed so that was fun and learned of the history of the colleges at Oxford. We then were on our own to capture the city life of Oxford in our photos. There is a really cool covered market that we have visited a couple times, we grabbed some lunch there and cookies from a great little cookie bakery, baking huge fresh cookies. I then decided to get a hair cut at the market barber shop, haha. I got the clipper cut and beard trim (just imagine me saying this in an accent). It was pretty funny. After getting my trim we snapped some more photos at another open-air market with fruits and vegetables and really just about everything else then headed back. We've been having really busy mornings and early afternoons so usually at around 2 I'm beat. so yesterday I took a nice nap, then cooked dinner with some others. It was nice to actually cook a meal for myself over here. The past couple days I haven't had groceries so I have been scrounging from kitchen to kitchen to see what the girls have been cooking up. I guess that's a perk of being with 20 girls is they like to cook so I've been able to slip a meal here and there. After dinner some of us went to an ice cream shop and hung out for a little while. Here's some pics from the day:

Courtyard from Harry Potter.

And here I am at the Barber shop

Enjoy.

Tuesday 5/18

We met Tuesday morning to go paint at another park in Oxford that over looks the city skyline. It was an absolutely perfect sunny warm day for the on sight painting.

It was an amazing view as you can see.

After painting for a couple hours in the park we made our way down and grabbed some lunch at this cool Moroccan sandwich shop, then just walked around town for a little while

Monday 5/17

Ok so on Monday we met early and set out for The Cotswolds, haha so British. Anways we had a little bit of a bus ride to The Cotswolds, which is an area of little towns, public land, old villages, and ruins. We got to the town, I can't remember the name of it now, but it was a very nice little town with nice shops and pubs here and there. We then set out to where we would be painting, on the country side, which we pretty much hiked to get to. I think it was a good 2 miles. But it was a beautiful walk, the entire way we walked along this trail along a stream. It really reminded me of Colorado and looked like some prime fly fishing. We walked till we reached this abandoned church from the 18th century I believe. It was set right in these hills, on the edge of a forest, with little cottages spaced around it, I felt like I was in a movie it was so nice.

The church..

And the view for my watercolor.

After being out there for a couple hours we walked back into town and grabbed lunch at a pub before catching another bus that took us to these old ruins. It's so cool because all of these places are in such good shape, and not over run by tourists at all, the people respect the land and it's history. I don't know if similar things would be in such good shape in the U.S.

We stayed and painted at the ruins for a little over an hour before catching the bus back to Oxford. It was a very busy, but great day.

Sunday 5/16

Sunday we were able to sleep in, or I did accidentally. A few went to a church service but I was not feeling too well Sunday morning. We met as a group at like 1:30 to go to this place called Blenheim Palace. Right as we walk out to walk to the bus it begins to rain, and I of course didn't bring an umbrella. But it was fine and I was able to share. So then we had to wait forever in the rain for the bus and finally loaded up. This wasn't too enjoyable for me because I was feeling like crap and the swaying bus was not helping. Luckily I popped a Dramamine and that got me feeling better. We finally reached the Palace grounds, still raining and cold. Here's some quick pics from the afternoon at the Palace. The grounds were beautiful, unfortunately we didn't get to go inside.

As you can see, the sun finally made it's way out and it turned into a great day.

Also came across this beauty, so many nice cars out here.

Ok, I think that should be enough pictures for now of the Palace, enjoy!

Saturday 5/15

Saturday was a pretty relaxed day. We didn't really have any set plans as a group so it was nice. I spent my early afternoon in University Park in Oxford with some others. It was really cool. I wish there were parks like this in Texas, or Abilene; where people just walk and sit in the grass and read or just go walk their dog. There were also some lacrosse games going on at some fields at the park so that was fun to watch. Everything was so green and lush, it was a really nice day

I have soo many pictures to go through and edit and delete! These are just a few from the park. Saturday night some us went out and explored Oxford some more and found a nice pub and stayed for a while. It was a lot of fun, it got really busy the later the night got and I met some locals. Everyone I have met has been really cool, I really like the Brit's!

London; updated 5/20/10

Well, it has been harder than I thought to keep this updated. So I will just do one post for each day. Thursday night we went to a nearby town called Summertown. For an Artwalk type thing called Art Week, where all of these local artists opened up their houses and studies and had their work on display and for sale. It was pretty cool seeing real artists houses and in home studios.

This is the back yard of one house. Mom, you would love all the backyards and the houses.

And that is a backyard studio of an artist that one of our professors knew.

On Friday 5/14 we set out for London. We left at 9 am and took the train from Oxford. Riding the train was great. It was a really pretty ride, through a lot of what looked like farm land, everything so green and lush. We arrived in London and then had to take the subway a couple stop to our destination. I LOVE riding the train and subway. We finally got above ground and out into the beautiful London day. I really did like London. Our first stop was The Tate Britain museum. It was a pretty large museum with several well known works and English artists ranging from like 13th Century stuff to modern day. There were a lot of Turner's works, (note to everyone, look up J.M.W. Turner) I love all of his paintings, mostly the epic sea scapes and ships in them. There was also an interesting exhibit in the main lobby/hall way that was these large phrases, some bible verses, that were just randomly placed all over the wall.

Our next stop was The National Museum of Art, which is huuuge, I mean massive. I spent a good 2-2 and a half hours in there and don't think I saw everything. It was amazing though. It has Van Gogh's, Picasso, Cezanne, DaVinci, Rafael, every big wig. It is really a crazy feeling standing in front of these priceless works thinking that the artist stood in front of the same piece centuries ago. The museums are quite exhausting though, and after a while I was tired of the art work. We finished up at The National a little after 6, so these were all day events. After the museum I went with a group to go to what is like a Times Square of London, to go shopping and just explore. It was crazy, just floods of people. I really like London though, it is such a cool city. I spent some time in a huge, 2 story Apple store, and talked to a guy who was actually from Texas that worked there, pretty funny. After all the shopping and more walking around, hearing an awesome street drummer, we found a nice Tai restaurant to have dinner. After dinner we made our way back to the subway and to the train station and boarded the train back to Oxford. We got back to Oxford at about midnight and the city was pretty shut down except for some roaring pubs that looked pretty fun, But we were exhausted from a long day of walking all over London.

A protest going on near Parliament.

And Big Bend of course.

Farewell chaps!

I've got the accent down pretty good too I think.

What up my bloggas! This is my first entry here since being across the pond and I hope to keep it updated almost daily with photos and such.

So far I am really enjoying the U.K. Oxford is a very cool little city. After we arrived the first day, we were all pretty tired and and had lunch and a little orientation then went on a quick tour around Oxford and just walked around some.

Our first day, (yesterday 5/12) we went to the Ashmolean museum first thing in the morning. The Ashmolean was very cool and had several big artist, Picasso, Van Gogh, Sergeant, and some others are a few I saw, and it was a free museum so that was cool. I was there for an hour or two, taking notes and making sketches of the work I saw. After that I had to hurry back to the house and grabbed some lunch before we started painting. We had a quick little water color tutorial in our class room at the house then we headed out to this meadow not too far away. It was awesome, really pretty. It is just free public land for anyone to go one, and there were horses and cows and everything.

-I thought the 3 person bike in the picture was pretty funny, amongst all the animals.

An here is my view from when I was painting along this river.

-I sat and painted for awhile and it was really nice, then it started getting cloudy and got freezing. So I gave up after my hands were numb and I had a semi complete water color.

That's all I got for today, but I'm going to try and get more pictures today, maybe with me in them!

But anyways I love and miss everyone who's viewing from back home and talk to you soon!