During our writing workshop at southern Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon Ranch last week I was able to take time out to journal while our participants were off doing their writing assignments.

It’s always a challenge to sketch the expanse of red-rock cliffs that frame the northern canyon—the temptation is to try to depict every rock spire, striation, and cactus. But keeping it loose and suggestive, rather than a photo-realistic drawing, seems to be the best for a journal page.

Bird migration was just starting, and we had some hummingbird action at the desert honeysuckle (forgot to bring the bird feeders!).

A sweet bonus: lots of Sara orange-tip butterflies bouncing around—these are classic Sonoran Desert spring harbingers.

The first two nights were cloudy but on the final night we enjoyed viewing Jupiter, and then early next morning a waning gibbous moon to the west.

Depicting night skies in our journals is hard—it’s tempting to lay down a very black background, but I find a very dark blue (with a tiny bit of purple) works better, and if you can succeed with a dry-brush to leave a little bit of white bits for stars, even better. If not, a Uniball white gel pen works wonders, as does white gouache for the moon.