For my spring break I am heading to my neighbor to the southeast: Tucson, Arizona.

I have been to the Old Pueblo a handful of times but mainly for birding, which is excellent.

I planned to do some birding and a lot of field sketching. For this short trip I opted to bring a Stillman & Birn Delta Journal.

This 5.5 X 8.5 inch journal offers a lot of flexibility on quality ivory watercolor paper. It’s small enough to be carried in a sling bag or large pocket yet big enough for most of my stretching subjects. And throughout my travels I know that with a smaller sketchbook, you sketch more.

Before my journey I did a few pre-trip sketches. On my opening spread I sketched one of the largest and only venomous lizards in the United States, the Gila monster. I would love to see one in the wild!

My sketching style was influenced by the opening of the animated classic Watership Down (1978) where the animals were rendered in an aboriginal style. In my Gila monster sketch, I wasn’t going for reality, but more of a figurative and stylized version of the lizard.

Another spread includes some sketching targets in and around Tucson including Mt. Lemmon, Saguaro National Park, the Pima Air & Space Museum, the Airplane Boneyard, the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and others.

Does this sketch make sense? Not really. It is not accurate or to scale and Tucson is rendered as a rough orange square.

I don’t care but I like it!