Desert Rose Design Studio

New website

2010-08-08T18:47:00.002-07:00

After many months of work, I've launched the new Desert Rose Design Studio website ~ DesertRoseDesignStudio.com.

I'll be updating this blog now as new work and musings occur. Thank you for your interest!

Beautiful patterns in nature ~ cryptic coloring (2)

2009-08-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

This horned lizard was snoozing beside a rock in the upper bird-feeding yard.

A beautiful example of cryptic coloring.

Can you find him?

He is in the lower right next in the photos, next to a pale rock.

Juvenile ravens at West Coast Tank

2009-08-09T10:19:00.029-07:00

About 30 miles south of us is a large manmade charco (Spanish for cattle pond), which fills seasonally - usually in summer when the heavy rains flood the normally dry washes. West Coast Tank is several acres, with a small island in the middle that is sometimes a peninsula, depending on the volume of water. We were delighted to discover this amazing oasis in July and are making regular "safaris" there to enjoy the birds and other wildlife.

One of the highlights of a visit on Saturday was sneaking up on two juvenile ravens sitting deep in a mesquite tree - sound asleep! They were small, about 2/3 size, and the closest one to us (about six feet away) was clearly asleep, slightly wavering back and forth, very comfy in the cool canopy. When they finally heard us, they started shuffling around a little and then started calling - high-pitched for ravens, not yet fully developed. Soon their parents swooped in to scold us and protect them. We left soon thereafter. But the feeling of standing so close to them, while they snoozed, was really quite wonderful - a real nature connection.

Click the player below to hear them vocalizing - their voices are the distinctly higher pitched calls, while the parents - who arrived quickly upon hearing their alarm - are deep and throaty. I recorded this using the iPhone and iTalk from Griffen (If the player does not work, try clicking this to open in a new window: Juvenile Ravens )

Vin de noix ~ Green walnut wine

2009-08-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Walnuts (Juglans major) in the southwestern states are beginning to ripen . . . time to try something I've had in my nature notes for some time: vin noix (green walnut wine), made from noix de Saint-Jean (Saint John's walnut). One of the best tutorials on the origin and making of this European aperitif is on William Rubel's website (williamrubel.com). Traditionally in France the walnuts (from J. regia) are harvested around June 24, which is Saint Jean's Day, the feast of Saint John. Our southwestern species don't begin to grow until later in July. I don't know if our wild walnuts will yield a quality flavored product (it's actually one of several flavorings in what's known as a fortified wine, since it's made by infusing alcohol and wine with botanicals and spices). The recipes refer to the astringent quality of the walnuts, and ours certainly have that characteristic. I gathered these in New Mexico's Mimbres Valley, northeast of Silver City.

Vin de Noix (from William Rubel)

40 young walnuts that can be pierced with a needle, rinsed and quartered
1 liter alcohol such as brandy, marc, eau de vie, or vodka
5 liters red wine
1 kg sugar (2 pounds)
One or more of the following are often added, but are optional
12 walnut leaves
Zest of 1 orange
4 to 8 cloves
1 vanilla bean

[I reduced the recipe to 15 wild walnuts; 1.25 L red Italian table wine; .25 L vodka; 225 g sugar; 4 walnut leaves; half a vanilla bean; zest of 1/4 orange; 4 cloves.]

1. Pick the walnuts in late June when the walnuts are well formed, but can still be pierced with a needle. Place all of the ingredients in an 8 quart (8 liter) non-reactive container with a lid. I use a large glass jar. Store in a cool dark place for 6 to 8 weeks, shaking occasionally.

2. Strain through cheesecloth into a bowl. Taste, and adjust the sugar if you want the drink to be sweeter. Bottle and store in a cool dark place until the cold weather.

Check back in eight weeks for a taste test. I'll also look for ripe walnuts in the fall; these make excellent pigment.

Prickly pear fruit ripening . . .

2009-08-06T06:53:00.003-07:00

And the desert dwellers, including us, enjoy their tart-sweet goodness, complete with fuschia lips.

I will be extracting prickly pear juice this week. Meanwhile a local desert tortoise shows evidence of snacking.

iPhone as a journal tool

2009-07-29T06:34:00.003-07:00

I caved in to the urge and got an iPhone 3G . . . and have been amazed. It's not 'just' a phone, it's a tiny computer and a GPS. It instantly replaced five 'gadgets' I usually have with me: phone, iPod, computer, camera, and GPS. An unexpected bonus is that I have found it a perfect journaling tool.

What bird was that? The other day we drove down to a pond south of us, and were astonished to find hundreds of birds enjoying the bounty of water in the desert. I didn't have my full field guide set with me, but I was able to confirm Common Ground Dove calling with National Geographic's Handheld Birds app - most every entry includes sound as well as images and data.

I have a real ineptitude for remembering astronomy. My all-time-favorite app thus far is StarWalk. Like having a mini planetarium and personal starguide in your pocket. It's difficult to describe just how cool this app is - you can zoom in and out, scroll 360 degrees around the dome of the sky, including what's below the horizon . . . click on a planet or star or cluster and get full data on it . . . and search for the name of a celestial object and it will show you where it is - all in exact relation to your current location. So when I note in my journal the arresting moonscape-and-planet I saw at 4 am, I can look up exactly which planet.

I always note the times of sun and moon rising and setting, as well as the moon phase. This great app, called Sun and Moon, always keeps it at my fingertips.

With the GPS and two very useful apps, I am always able to follow our route on topographical maps in the U.S., or using Google maps elsewhere. Topo Maps has a full set of USGS maps for download, and GPS MotionX turns the iPhone GPS into a fully functional track and waypoint tool and then some. I no longer need my Garmin, and furthermore it's much easier to use, download maps, and export and share data.

Finally, I am always using the built-in iPhone camera to take snapshots of things I want to sketch, like beetles or a nice sunset. And I can use All-in Notes to take quick voice memos or combined photo / note / memos and email them to my main computer.

All the apps are available at the App store; just use the Search function to find.

I {heart} . . . coyotes

2009-07-27T07:22:00.002-07:00

Coyote at dusk, Ravenrock 2007.

Coyote howls, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

A touch of tropics

2009-07-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

Lovely rain is turning our desert tropical.

Fruit ripening on the prickly pear cactuses.

A mini Zen-rock-garden, pebbles from Baja that turn cactus-green in the rain.

New jewelry soon in online store

2009-07-23T17:23:00.003-07:00

I will have new bracelets and earrings on sale this weekend at my new online store. Focusing on new metals for me ~ brass and steel with hammered, oxidized and colored finishes, and combining them with pearls and delicate strips of tulle ribbon.

I {heart} . . . summer storms and sunsets

2009-07-20T06:42:00.002-07:00

Making pigments from local materials (2): oak galls

2009-07-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

On Friday we drove the southwestern flanks of the Santa Rita Mountains to the hamlet of Patagonia ~ we stayed roughly above 4,000 feet elevation, and I had plenty of opportunity to look for oak galls to try the recipe for oak gall pigment in Gwen Diehn's Decorated Journal. Oak galls are the leftover baby wasp 'housings'; worldwide there are thousands of tiny wasp species (some no bigger than the nib on a pen), which are obligate to one species of oak. On this oak they inject a hormone that triggers the oak to form this structure . . . in which the wasp lays its eggs, which then develop, nicely protected, in the gall. Some are tiny, some are large. All are produced entirely by the plant, and are tannin-rich (and thus can produce nice inks and pigments; galls in Europe have been used for centuries as inks; tannins also are used for curing leather ~ the origin of "tanning"). The holes in the galls indicate where the young wasps emerge.

I finally found some nice big ones, on a Mexican gray oak (Quercus grisea), and collected five.

Back home, I followed the Medieval recipe:

Grind the galls to powder ~

Boil them in rainwater for as long as it takes to recite the Pater Noster three times ~

Add drops of a mild acid (vinegar or lemon juice) until the liquid turns from rich brown to deep black.

Results are inconclusive as well as enticing. While the majority of the liquid never turned beyond a rich, reddish brown (see the leaves in the drawing above, of the oak galls ~ these are painted with the gall pigment; the oaks there were very stressed, with dried leaves; did this contribute to tannin-poor galls?), I laid down a silver-plated spoon, on which were bits of the ground gall and liquid, on the counter; half an hour later, a tiny puddle under the spoon was a rich, dark black. I tried many other experiments - boiling further (to reduce), adding more lemon, adding vinegar, but was never able to reproduce that one teeny black smudge.

So, my experiments will continue . . .

I {heart} . . . vintage kitchenware

2009-07-12T17:52:00.007-07:00

These are at my friend Lara's home . . .

She has exquisite taste, and is the most naturally stylish person I know.

Pink: Summer color in the Sonoran Desert

2009-07-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Arizona pincushion cactus ~

a bee friend

a field of pink . . .

how many pincushions do you see in the image?

The perils of a curious (and absent-minded) spouse

2009-07-09T17:27:00.006-07:00

For weeks now I've been plagued in my studio / office by the {highly} unpleasant aroma of something decaying . . . I had assumed it was a mouse that snuck in the open door one morning when I was airing it out, or perhaps had gotten in through some unknown hole in the roof (unlikely). We looked high and low, under and over, around and around - and we could not find the source, which seemed to come from higher up, and waft around in a frustratingly fickle manner. For at least five days it was impossible to even work there . . . I was not amused.

This morning I decided to air out the three motorcycle jackets hanging near my workbench - mine and two of Jonathan's. They seemed musty - and I didn't like that smell either - so I took them outside, and Jonthan helped. He seemed preoccupied with one of them, his Barbour International. But he's always preoccupied with jackets.

Just as we were concluding lunch, Jonathan said: "Um, I hope you enjoyed lunch with me today."

"Of course! But why do you ask?"

"Um . . . it might be our last for a while."

"?"

"Um . . . about three weeks ago I was riding home on the Royal Enfield and I found a just-roadkilled lizard . . . I thought it was a long-nosed leopard-lizard but wasn't sure . . . so I, um, sort of put it in the pocket of my Barbour, so I could ID it when I got home . . . and, well, I forgot about it.

"Until just now."

Mystery solved. The Barbour jacket was hanging behind 4 other jackets, so the smell was 'muffled' by lots of fabric and explaining why we could not locate it. Twenty-five years together, I'm not surprised, and . . . of course, I should have guessed!

{And yes, it was a long-nosed leopard lizard, quite lovely . . .}

Journal page ~ June beetle and hummingbird

2009-07-09T08:59:00.004-07:00

I {heart} . . . kittens

2009-07-06T09:17:00.003-07:00

This gaggle of four adorable, purring, playful kittens mobbed us yesterday when we visited a friend's house. The ginger one stole my heart . . .

Making pigments from local materials

2009-07-05T06:23:00.008-07:00

In the past few weeks I have been spending more and more time on my nature journal, which I have been keeping for nearly 20 years. I made the leather cover and a simple page-attachment system (tied with a leather strip) so I can use any paper I like, cut and drilled to fit. There are loops inside for pens. It's been with me all over the world, recording what I see and experience.

I started adding sketches in the mid-1990s, working from the Clare Walker Leslie's books on nature journals and the excellent Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain. The latter is excellent for those of us who have both a strong science leaning as well as an artistic side, but the science side gets in the way of free-flowing art and sketching especially.

Now I've been adding watercolor and a few more collages to my journal, switching to archival watercolor paper and handmade art papers.

In the Decorated Page, Gwen Diehn describes making pigments from local minerals and organic matter - and I had to try it. First, I made ink with charcoal from local mesquite, and then a beautiful ochre pigment from clay collected on a nearby road. I will post tutorials soon. And I can't wait to try other minerals and materials - oak gall ink, turquoise, fluorite, and chrysocolla pigment . . .

I {heart} . . . Kit Carson jewelry

2009-06-29T06:47:00.006-07:00

I first started collecting Kit Carson jewelry in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

I have four of his pins, wonderful engraved desert animals, classic western engraving with a whinsical twist.

I rediscovered his work and he's added wonderful stones and more funk.

Must have a raven piece.

Traveling in southern California

2009-06-27T07:41:00.004-07:00

J. and I are traveling in southern California this week, a mix of business and fun.

We're going to steal some time in LA to visit the Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Meanwhile here is an archive photo of a piece I'm repeating (in progress) - I love the nearly transparent carnelian cabochon - I am still on a bracelet kick!

25 Years

2009-06-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary.

What joy in that!

I {heart} . . . this little guy

2009-06-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

Tommy T

Newest cat ambassador for the Cincinnati Zoo

see CheetahDays.com

Journal page ~ Fire on Elkhorn Ridge

2009-06-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

There has been a fire on a ridge in the Baboquivari Mountains west and south of us . . . we watched it grow in the night, an eerie string of fire-pearls creeping up the mountain ridge. Now it is threatening Brown Canyon and the house where we used to live . . . and Elkhorn Ranch, owned by Mary and Charlie Miller . . . the fire was started by an illegal immigrant, trying to signal for help. We are in California right now and are watching and hearing the news from afar . . .

Journal page ~ Desert castanets

2009-06-12T20:11:00.004-07:00

The seed pods on the foothills palo verde (Cercidium microphyllum) are drying out, and the wind today is turning each tree into a little band of castanets . . . click-click-rattle-rattle-clack. The colors are washed, pale yellow, soft green . . .

Food as art . . . summertime lunch

2009-06-11T06:14:00.000-07:00

Cold snap peas with chipotle mayonnaise; quesadilla (flour tortilla with melted jack cheese and chipotle salsa; queso is Spanish for cheese); and watermelon juice with lime. I had some lovely seedless watermelon go a bit mushy in the fridge, so I pureed it with a little lime juice . . . the perfect summer drink. The colors were so beautiful, I had to share.

Inlaid stones and bone

2009-06-10T05:46:00.001-07:00

I love cabochons inlaid with other stones - or bones. One of my favorite lapidary artists and goldsmiths is Michael Boyd, whose creations are astonishing; he layers gemstone over gemstone set in gold and silver, to create lavish and yet somehow organic jewelry.

His work introduced me to Arizona black jade, which is a delight to cut and polish. I think everyone buys it from a quirky guy named Robert at Sweetwater Mine. I regret I haven't kept any of my earliest pieces, but several are with friends and family - and I still have some nice rough to work with. Black jade cuts easily but polishes to a lovely glassy shine quickly; the natural unpolished rind is so beautiful, I often leave it natural and just polish the sides.

When muse-friend Debra gave me a little carved bone moon face and some cubic zirconia to play with, I knew I had to make a "Moon and Stars" piece. Here is my very first Arizona black jade piece, and I hope to return to the cutting wheels again soon; you can see the nice texture of the rind and the highly polished edges above the bezel:

I also made this piece very early in my jewelrymaking, for Debra - combining flat carnelian beads with Arizona Sleeping Beauty turquoise (including a cabachon 'inlay' aided by epoxy) in "East Meets West":

I {heart} . . .

2009-06-08T05:38:00.001-07:00

Z e b r a s .

And anything made with zebra pattern . . .

Journal pages ~ June 6, 2009

2009-06-07T15:08:00.011-07:00

Pages from my journal from the mountain lion track count

(see post below)

Tracking cougars in southeastern Arizona

2009-06-07T07:05:00.013-07:00

Cougars, or mountain lions, are elusive and so they are rarely seen in the wild. When biologists need to find out information about their lives - even how many there are in an area, and how they move around their territories, which are very large (as big as a hundred square miles) - in the past the only options were expensive and invasive (for the animal) radio tracking collars. But 20 years ago a group in southeast Arizona started testing out tracking on Fort Huachuca, by Sierra Vista, as a way to learn more about lions, as well as black bears. It has been a successful way for biologists and land managers to compile information about the animals, and an even better way for "citizen scientists" to become trackers and help out conservation efforts.

On Friday and Saturday Jonathan and I were volunteer team leaders for the 20th Fort Huachuca Mountain Lion Track Count. We have been involved with this project for 14 years off and on. It is one of the longest-running wildlife tracking programs in the country, and this was the final count, according to founder Sheridan Stone, the fort biologist. Sky Island Alliance, a non-profit conservation organization in Tucson that works on wildlife linkages throughout the American Southwest and northern Mexico, coordinated the event. We have taught wildlife tracking skills for the organization since 2000 (and I was the executive director for several years).

Our assigned transect for the weekend was only accessible by a difficult 4WD trail, so our team of five piled into my Land Cruiser diesel and headed up the mountain at 6 am. Six teams in all spent the weekend surveying sections of trail for mountain lion and black bear tracks and sign. The data has helped the Fort get an understanding of wildlife numbers and movements over time. Here are some pictures:

That's me showing off some mountain lion scat (poop!).

Jonathan on the trail.

The rough road required the team to pile into my Land Cruiser diesel (note the cheetah spots).

Lunch break - me, Hanna, Rachelle, and Ron

The view from under the pinyon tree.

On our 1.5 mile-long transect, we found sign of one lion - a set of tracks heading downhill from about 200 meters. The tracks were hard to see because the wind had been high all night, scrubbing the dirt and disturbing the tracks. In the photo, the track is hard to see; it is between the two and four on the bottom ruler - it is about 2.5 x 2.5 inches, a smallish lion, probably a female. Below is a track from another field session; the large main pad and three lobes at the bottom identify it as cat, and the size as cougar.

Bounty

2009-06-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

I love summer's bounty . . . cooking is such a delight.

Greening of the desert

2009-06-03T07:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I found this lovely vintage Indian scarf at my favorite thrift store, which was closing for the summer and marked everything at 50 percent off ~ so this was $2. It's a beautiful desert-summer-green cotton, pale, with tiny sequins and one rhinestone decoration. The hem is hand-rolled and sewn

The desert here is also greening up, after an unusual late May rain . . . usually in June it is dry, bone dry, and plants are withered and brown. But now, even the ocotillos have leaves.

Prickly pear cactus fruit ripening

Palo verde seed pods ripening

Prickly pear cactus pad growth

Ocotillo leaves

An early appreciate for nature & beauty

2009-06-02T06:38:00.002-07:00

Are creativity and curiosity innate, or learned? Perhaps a combination. My parents are both very creative and appreciative of nature, beauty, and art. They passed that on to their children - all of us are creative in different ways, and interested in the world around us; I see it in the my nieces and nephew, too. My dad loved rockhounding in the Southwest, and took us kids with him on trips to search for geodes, desert roses, chalcedony nodules, agates, and pyrite. That's me circa 1972 or so, with my little collecting bag, probably filled with a hammer and some unknown rocks. Dad cut rocks into slabs and made them into cabochons, and then made jewelry. I loved hanging out in his workshop - it smelled of dusty rocks and machine oil. Little did I know I would pick up the thread decades later and become a lapidary and jewelrymaker, too. All those weekends exploring the deserts around our home also rubbed off on me - nature is an enormous inspiration to me, a real passion. I'm so grateful to have a spouse who shares that, and a wonderful retreat in the desert where I am surrounded by the things I love the most.

I {heart} Monday . . .

2009-06-01T05:46:00.001-07:00

Starting a Monday tradition (a la Mrs. French at the artful blog, Bliss)

I {heart} hatboxes.

My collection, above.

Plus this one (a Valentine's gift from J.)

And this one is smashing, from Rustycowboys

The creative process (4): so many projects, so little time . . .

2009-05-31T19:02:00.004-07:00

While I would have liked to have spent most of my weekend at the workbench, I decided to tackle the considerable job of cleaning up and organizing the workshop after five months of neglect . . . it took most of my time, fancy that.

When I finally sat down at the workbench for some creative time, I found I could not concentrate on projects at hand . . . on Thursday I bought two tiny Moleskine journals on a whim at the checkout at Borders . . . and I'm just dying to make little copper journal covers for them.

Then there is this project:

I found the Mimosa seed pod in Baja, and over the last few months have been messing about with a design that incorporates a single pearl, an iridescent green and gold beetle from Kenya, and a richly patinaed copper background . . . it's not quite right yet, but I like the fabricated / fused silver branches.

And then while at Ace Hardware I found brass channel wire - prefect for quick, inexpensive bead bracelets. I envision this one with all black beads (wonderful Arizona black jade) with a single red one . . .

And so I messed about with a lot of little things, but in the end didn't finish anything . . .

So many projects. It's wonderful, but sometimes I wish there were 40 hours per day . . .

Beautiful patterns in nature ~ scales

2009-05-30T17:29:00.003-07:00

Not everyone thinks snakes are beautiful, but to me they are. It's snake season here in the Sonoran Desert, so it means being a little more careful where one puts feet or hands. But when you chance upon a rattlesnake hunting, like this one, coiled near the bird feeders, it is a chance to appreciate the beautful colors and patterns in their skin, rendering them nearly invisible in the pebbly ground.

The creative process (3): keeping organized, keeping track

2009-05-25T17:28:00.008-07:00

I tend to have a lot of projects going at once, and with hundreds of pieces of inventory (from gemstones to beads to found objects to silver, copper, and gold), I had to develop a way to keep the chaos at bay and yet still allow for my creative process to flow . . .

Developed over several years of full-time jewelry-making (with inventories for online sales, 6 galleries, and several craft shows), this system is based on using my own Desert Rose notepads (5 x 7") and slightly larger plastic bags from a jeweler's supply store.

When working on a project (or an idea, still in the 'bits and pieces' phase), I sketch the basic idea, dimensions, and materials on a piece of the notepaper. If a commercial project, I'll include the prices of the components and where I got them, so I can source them again; a tally of the final cost is simple and helps me to figure out wholesale or retail pricing. The piece above is a great example: a cheap cabachon ($5) because it seems to have a 'flaw' - but I saw it as nopportunity to pair with a perfectly shaped droplet of fire agate that will look like it 'dripped' out of the agate . . . ('GG' as the source is Galarneau's Gems; Jerry Galarneau is my favorite cab maker if I am not able to make my own.)

In between projects I place all the parts in the bag (usually in smaller bags, to protect stones and metal) and store in a tall baker's rack on wheels - the shelves are huge baking sheets; each shelf holds 50 or more bags and there is room for 15 shelves, though I use many of them for bead and found object storage as well.

Finally, I file finished projects in a three-ring binder with a photo of the piece, so I have a record system that makes repeat projects much easier.

Copper Fire Series - New Forged Fire Bracelets

2009-05-23T18:44:00.008-07:00

When I set aside the found-object copper bracelet (or necklace) project, I decided to try out an idea I'd had a while back using copper wire and scrap silver.

I cut 6" lengths of 10-gauge copper wire and took them out to my old railroad tie anvil, where I used a large hammer to forge their ends to tapered paddles, then a jeweler's ball-peen hammer to dimple and mar the surface all over.

Back at the bench, I filed and finished the ends, then got out my jar of silver scrap and chose pieces of wire and bezel strip to wrap around the copper. On goes the torch, and I heated the copper and silver to the point where the silver started to flow and fuse with the copper. Off with the heat and tossed the piece into cold water.

It was a slaggy blackened mess at first, but with some careful work with sanding blocks and detailed work with manicurists' foam-files (with three different grades of abrasive and polishing surfaces), and the colors begin to glow - deep red, bright silver and gold, deep black, and rich copper.

A few bends on the bracelet mandrel, some Krylon clear satin, and we have a beautiful forged-fire bracelet that has a very organic feel.

These will be going up for sale in a few weeks, after I create an inventory.

Reward system - a cheetah-heart T-shirt

2009-05-23T18:22:00.006-07:00

This past Friday I had to finish up some pretty complicated - and very un-fun - accounting for a client, so I promised myself if I got through it, I would work on a fun project that had been humming around the back of my mind for weeks . . . an 'altered couture' T-shirt using cheetah-print fabric left over from my Land Cruiser center console and visor covers .

I found this bright green T at my favorite thrift shop for $1 and set about copying Amy Tangerine's wonderfully simple reverse applique process to add some whimsy to a simple T (the idea came from the spring issue of Altered Couture magazine).

One hour, a needle and some embroidery floss, scissors, and some beads, and I have a cheetah-heart T-shirt reward for hard work.

The creative process (2): found object bracelet

2009-05-23T17:47:00.009-07:00

Earlier in May I wrote about my creative process, and used as an example a collection of found objects (weathered copper and stones from a beach on the Sea of Cortez).

After sitting on my workbench for five months, I finally set about working them into a piece of jewelry today.

The second step for me (after playing with my piles of objects for days or weeks or months, until an idea 'gels') is to lay out all the bits and see if my idea will result - practically - into jewelry.

I wrote about how I envisioned the flat stones and copper as a linked bracelet, so that's what I set out to do. I sealed the copper with satin Krylon clear, to keep it from reacting when in contact with skin (salts and perspiration would cause an adverse reaction, both to the jewelry and to the skin).

I laid out the found stones (flat pieces of shale, in lavender and terra cotta colors) with the copper and started playing with the colors. Musing on shapes, textures, and colors, I then went to my considerable stash of stones and objects and started pulling out other pieces that might work well to add to the storyline: rainbow hematite, amber, amethyst, opal, iolite, copper, and a piece of blue-green glass.

Happy with the colors, I then started cutting out the copper into pieces I thought would work for bracelet links. It is very brittle, so the saw didn't work very well - it worked better to carefully snip with tin snips.

All joins will have to be 'cold' (without a torch or solder, since that would destroy the copper patina), so I marked where I will rivet or use miniature bolts to connect the layers. I like the look, colors, and textures . . . but I began to worry about the fragility of the pieces. The copper is very brittle, and the stones might not stand up well to the abuse a bracelet must withstand.

So I started considering making it a necklace . . . I mused on a metal chain, then started playing with cord and ribbon - I thought the contrast might be nice with the rough stones and patinaed copper.

At this point, I started another project, since I want to mull this one over a bit before continuing . . .

Cream-white: the color of Sonoran Desert summer

2009-05-22T09:19:00.004-07:00

As we move into full summer, the colors become bleached . . .

Saguaro cactus blossom

Soaptree yucca flower stalk

Seed pods of pincushion flower (Chaenactis)

Deer skulls and antlers

Beautiful patterns in nature ~ rocks

2009-05-20T16:53:00.003-07:00

Today is cloudy and rainy, the colors muted, and the patterns in this little pile of rocks on my front porch just appealed to me in the soft light. All collected within a mile of home: tumbled amethyst-striped quartz; copper ore; chalcedony (white and amber quartz); and a translucent red and soft green (rock types unknown).

Yellow: The color of early summer in the Sonoran Desert

2009-05-11T19:08:00.007-07:00

During April and May, the desert is awash with yellow.

Hillsides glow, trees are laden with flowers. Bees rejoice.

Mesquite blossoms

Prickly pear cactus blossoms

Coyote melons

(Squirrel snack, coyote melon)

Earth Treasures Collection

2009-05-10T21:45:00.007-07:00

Pieces from Earth Treasures Collection, sold at galleries in the West from 2006 - 2008:

Carnelian twist
Agate and amber
Picasso jasper
Owyhee jasper and amber
Rattlesnake jasper and faceted citrine
Old Montana agates; amber earrings

Found objects - Travelers' Treasures Collection

2009-05-10T21:19:00.014-07:00

These two pieces represent art made from treasures found while traveling. Pieces such as this can be some of the most treasured we have . . . with each bit reminding us of a moment, a place, a person.

Although created 10 years apart, they ironically were each inspired by focal points found along England's southern coast . . . a piece of green sea glass from near Dover, and a small granite beach cobble worn with a perfect hole.

Olde England: Hastings bedrock granite pebble bead, made by the Atlantic, found last year (2008); feathers from a garden rook and an African lilac-breasted roller (we were en route back from an East Africa trip, stopping to see friends in Hastings), English coins, blue beach glass, obsidian, fossil ivory (from England), and amber, including an earring whose mate I lost on that same trip.

Seaside England: Ten years earlier I had found the lovely tumbled green glass on a walk along the Dover shore; I drilled it, and used lilac waxed cotton to string pearls, seashells, and painted/dyed fish vertebrae beads from an old Seri Indian necklace bought along the Sea of Cortez on a trip with the same English friends we were with in Dover.

Do you have treasures from your travels? I will do commissions upon request. Please email me at this address.

Found object jewelry - vintage bracelets

2009-05-10T21:11:00.007-07:00

My friend Debra is a wonderful inspiration for art . . . she is a patroness, supporting many artists in the U.S., and she encourages people like me to be creative by sharing her findings on her travels. One of my favorite things is to receive a 'Debra' package, a bag containing beads or findings or vintage jewelry or found treasures, with a note that reads simply - 'for Roseann.'

How can any artist not love that?

These bracelets and earrings are early Debra-inspired pieces, with vingage findings, old beads, costume jewelry links, and bone spacers. The green bracelet at top is a real miracle, an amalgem of inexpensive (ie: really quite ugly on their own!) plastic faux-pearls and vintage earrings that just . . . works.

My favorite kind of jewelry - unplanned, one-of-a-kind, and from the hear.

Milagro scarf

2009-05-10T21:00:00.003-07:00

In my "Creative process" post below, I mentioned how sometimes I head out to the studio to create a piece of jewelry, and something entirely different will happen . . . this is one of those 'different' moments.

I stopped at my favorite thrift shop in Tucson last week, and among the items I grabbed was an eggshell silk scarf for 50 cents. My friend Debra had given me a little baggie of carved bone milagros, and had mused that she thought they would look wonderful lining a scarf . . . and the idea was born.

I bought a $2.99 box of Rit "rich brown" dye, and set about scrunching and dying the scarf so it would have an old 'worn' appearance. It didn't dye 'rich' but the lovely brown-maroon hue was just right.

So I tied the milagros - a cross, fish, raven, hand, and two other charms - onto the ends of the scarf with brown embroidery floss, then tied a sprinkling of metal and glass beads on as well, with gold and brown floss. Finally, I painted swirls, crosses, stars, and dots onto the silk with gold metallic paint . . . and voila, a quick and easy designer scarf.

The creative process

2009-05-10T17:21:00.007-07:00

The creative process fascinates me almost as much as colors, textures, and patterns. By 'process' I mean how one makes the journey from raw materials to finished art. Each artist has his or her own preferred method for inspiration, planning, and execution. I don't know how typical my process is, but I'm going to try to catalog it as much as I can, because I find it fascinating.

To begin the process, one must have the materials (whether it is jewelry or food, one has to have the basics on hand). As an artist interested in many media, I collect just about anything - stones, beads, textiles, beetle wings, feathers, scrap metal, shells, seeds. They reside in my studio in baskets or boxes or out in the yard in little piles.

The next step is to have lots of inspirational material at hand - magazines, books, websites. I have hundreds of books on jewelry, art, and other visual inspiration (textiles, photography). I also buy magazines like Ornament, Lapidary Journal / Jewelry Artist, Art Jewelry Magazine, Stampington's line of publications - Altered Couture, Artful Blogging, and Belle Armoire Jewelry, to name just a few. I flip through them (like I do recipe books and food magazines) during lunch or at night. The ideas just sift around in my head.

When I have just a little time to create - or I am giving myself 'permission' to create (that is, when I'm not fully engaged in a large contract for a client, or an event) - I notice that a part of my brain becomes locked in to seeing colors, textures, and patterns and processing them, no matter what I am doing at the time. I can be eating, sleeping, walking - and an idea just pops into my head. It can be jewelry, clothing, food - anything.

When a specific idea comes to me that I like, I keep a journal for sketching my ideas.

Then, when I set aside time to create, I head out to my studio and set out my current piles and sketches and I start fiddling with the bits and pieces . . . and the funny thing is, I can set out to create a bracelet but I might end up making a dyed and embellished scarf. I try not to force things, to "have" to do what I set out to do. This makes the whole art process so much more enjoyable to me.

The photos above are a collection of small pieces of slate, obsidian, bottle glass, and weathered copper sheet found on a beach in Mexico. This pile has been sitting on a corner of my workbench for months . . . when I'm on the phone, I sift and sort and play with the bits. I've been waiting for ideas to solidify. The copper is gorgeously, naturally patinated and I want to get it just right.

Right now I'm leaning toward a bracelet incorporating the small pieces of slate alternating with the copper sheet somehow. I like the verdigris, warm peach, and lilac colors together. I'm envisioning silver bezels or frames . . . and link connectors, for a loose bracelet. It hasn't quite 'gelled' yet, so we'll see.

As this project progresses, I'll continue to share in the process.

Copper Fire Collection

2009-05-10T17:02:00.004-07:00

Pieces from my Copper Fire Collection (sold, or in my own collection). From the top:

Rainbow hematite shard, heat-patinated copper
Ammonite and garnet, heat-patinated copper
Rainbow hematite on copper disks with iolite and garnet accents
Ammonite and quartz, heat-patinated copper

Food as art . . . chipotle salsa

2009-05-10T16:51:00.008-07:00

Cooking is a creative process, identical to creating jewelry or painting or clothing. You begin with an idea, you work with flavors as a palette, and there is a definite aesthetic. A few days ago I cooked up half a dozen jars of my chipotle salsa - and I think it is a good example of Food as Art: the flavor palette includes spicy fresh jalapenos, smokey chipotles (smoke-dried jalapenos) reconstituted in a homemade sweet-vinegary adobo sauce, tart onions, and acidic tomatoes. The aesthetic includes a not-quite-smooth texture, with small bits of onion and chile and tomato, and a color that is deep oxblood red.

Beautiful patterns in nature ~ cryptic coloring

2009-05-05T18:45:00.005-07:00

Summer is dawning on us gently this year in the Sonoran Desert. Two nights ago the Lesser Nighthawks began trilling - one of the signature sounds of desert summer. It is still cool - we haven't had any hot days yet. But the ancient rhythms carry on. Soon there will be nighthawk nests, which aren't really nests at all but just barely discernible indentations under a small shrub. A cryptically colored egg or two is laid. In a few weeks, a chick will hatch, if the parents are lucky, and it will be ready to fly very soon - nighthawk young are precocial, like baby quail - they must be ready to run or fly from predators very soon, since their rocky nests offer no protection. The egg above is beautiful - inspiration for a future art project.

Copper Bracelet - Copper Fire series

2009-05-05T18:27:00.009-07:00

This is one of those really great creative projects that just worked right the first time - I have yet to repeat the method, but will do so for some gallery pieces, part of an inexpensive line of jewelry I want to create called Urban Tribal.

The idea came from a 2007 issue of Art Jewelry Magazine - as soon as I saw the technique, I had to try it, since I had already been working on copper (see Copper posts) for a successful line of pendants and brooches.

In two hours I had a finished bracelet: I cut the form (a simple, squiggly-line bar) from medium-gauge copper sheet scraps; cut the brass-wire circles from more scraps (I have a big scrap jar); soldered the brass rings to the sheet; and punch the metal domes using 2 smaller dome punches, but having to improvise on the larger ones with the handles of a couple of awls held in the vise. I gently formed the bracelet with a wooden mallet over the bracelet mandrel, cupping it slightly over the awl handle, and then came the fun part: heating and quenching to produce the wonderful patina.

I managed to draw out the beautiful dark reds. A quick polish of the brass rings with a cloth, careful not to rub off the patina, and then sealed with Krylon clear satin.

Beautiful patterns in nature - spots

2009-05-04T20:54:00.009-07:00

Since I was 12, I have been in love with spotted cats. I am irrationally moved to possess anything adorned with the gorgeous patterns of leopards, cheetahs, or jaguars. I am normally quite a rational, even frugal person. But I can be walking through the grocery store on a mission to buy a gallon of milk, and out of the corner of my eye spot (pun intended?) a leopard-print mug - and I'm completely sidetracked. I often buy it, even if the price is silly. I recently found myself spending an extra $20 for a Flip Video, just so I could get the 'custom' version with cheetah spots. I bought leopard-print fabric to cover my truck's center console, then it ended up on the visors, too . . . How bad can it get?

Here is video proof.

Copper shield and rainbow hematite

2009-05-04T06:02:00.008-07:00

This is one of the first pieces of jewelry I made several years ago, a heat-patinaed copper shield inspired by a triangle of rainbow hematite from Robert at Sweetwater Minerals. The hematite is a wonderful mix of irridescense and texture, with a clear horizontal slash and surficial droplets of silvery pyrite inclusion. I mimicked the pyrite droplets with balls of silver, slightly flattened, and a top bar of silver balls. The color comes from heating the copper until it is nearly red, then quenching quickly in cold water. The results are never certain, which is part of the fun. Sometimes the color (which is oxidized minerals drawn out in the copper as it heats) flakes off, and sometimes it stays magically in place. In what became a series of copper shield pendants with the purple-blue hematite and cut ammonites, I was always aiming to capture the beautiful blues and purples. The necklace is one of my Bella Bolas, a 15-inch length of hand-woven calfskin with sterling end caps and hooks that can be used on many different necklace types that I developed.

Ancient Seas Collection

2009-05-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

From early work combining beadwork and fossils or amber. From the top:

Hundreds of amber beads strung on waxed linen, then woven into a 'nest' necklace.
The first ammonite I worked with, glued to leather and surrounded with stitched and woven vintage crystal, amber, and stone beads, with a matching beadwork necklace and seashell accent.
A piece of fossilized coral with a beadwork necklace of pearls, fluorite, and carnelian chips.
Fossil orthocereus shell drop, paired with a smokey quartz cabachon affixed to leather and beaded with vintage tube and crystal beads.

Ravenrock ~ Our home in the Sonoran Desert

2009-04-10T18:48:00.002-07:00

We are blessed to live on 20 acres surrounded on three sides by half a million acres of public land . . . we have no neighbors, can see only a few lights dozens of miles away at night, generate our own power from the sun and wind, our water comes from a well, and our communications from satellite and cellular.

It is called Ravenrock, for the reef of black rock that runs through the whole of the property, and for the pair of ravens that make their home here with us ~ actually, who share their home with us, for they were here before we were.

It is my inspiration, my dream place, my refuge that I share with my dear husband, Jonathan. As a creative person with long and deep connections to nature, it is vital to me to be a part of a natural place, where humans are just one of the many animals making their way through the world. The silence, the views, the other lives ~ all give me peace and inspire my work.

I will continue to post here about our little cottage, my studio, and the home we are building bit by bit in this corner of the Sonoran Desert.

Books by Roseann and Jonathan Hanson

2009-04-10T15:50:00.021-07:00

My husband Jonathan and I have written many natural history and outdoor adventure travel books together. He has written several on his own, and I have published one title by myself.

Our books are very special to us, especially our nature books, because each one represents a real part of us ~ a passion for a place, for wild things, for wildness. The creative process for writing a book is the same as that for creating jewelry, cutting a cabochon, or even cooking ~ it is a sum of many parts, carefully wrought, over time, into a final work to be shared.

All of our nature books combine our writing and artistic skills, and most of them drew upon my daily nature journals. We each write separate chapters, or we alternate writing sections or sidebars. Jonathan is a wonderful scientific illustrator, and I field sketch. Below are some of our nature books, and reviews from fellow naturalists, authors, and media. I've also added a few scans of almanac pages, and click here to hear a reading by me for a radio program in Tucson, of the introduction to the month of May.

A full list of our work is on our JandRHanson.com website, here.

"An exquisite guide book for what to look for in this intriguing area." - Jim Harrison

"This book is vibrant with fresh insights into a landscape that many of us barely know but already love." - Gary Paul Nabhan

"A reference guide both scientifically accurate and immediately understandable . . . a welcome addition to all bookshelves and backpacks." - Tucson Weekly

"The Hansons analyze, categorize, and bring to life every month of the year." - Tucson Citizen

"A valuable reference tool for both casual and detailed scientific inquiry." - Desert Leaf

"An abundance of information in short and sprightly bites, adding up to a definitive guide." - Santa Cruz Valley Sun

"Someone recommended this book to me when I first moved to Tucson after living 'up north' all my life. I had relocated to Arizona for a job and was in somewhat of a state of culture shock at the lack of green grass, no four seasons, etc. This book was a real god-send for me. It breaks the year into 12 months and describes what is happening in the environment in terms of climate, wildlife, plant life, and the constellations. It is filled with fun-facts and things to do and watch for, so adults and children alike will find this book fun and interesting to read. It is fascinating learning about the uniqueness of the Sonoran desert and it made me really appreciate how incredible and diverse it really is! I now recommend this book to everyone (native or newcomer) and buy it regularly as a 'welcome' gift to my colleagues that relocate here from other parts of the country. I highly recommend it." - B. Gores, Amazon.com review

"To adequately describe a place like the San Pedro River, if such a complex and fascinating place can ever be adequately described, one must know it like an old friend. To reach that level of familiarity, one has to have spent countless hours with the place, gaining an intimate knowledge of the multitudes of nuances and wonders to which the casual visitor will be oblivious.

If a person gains such a level of understanding of a great natural area, and if that person happens to be an accomplished writer, a worthwhile and entertaining book may be the result, if we, the readers, are lucky. Fortunately, that is precisely what has happened in the case of the book, The San Pedro River, by Roseann Hanson.

Few areas in our country are more biologically rich than the San Pedro River. This small river and the riparian forest that surrounds it are home to more species of wild animals than virtually any other area of equal size on the North American Continent. Nearly 400 species of birds have been seen there. The San Pedro was named one of the Last Great Places in the Northern Hemisphere by the Nature Conservancy. Having been there, I would not hesitate to drive thousands of miles to walk its banks again.

Ms. Hanson knows the San Pedro River from having roamed its forests over much of her life. Too, she is an alert observer and an excellent writer with a deep understanding of people and wildlife, and a real gift for description. Her rendition of the call of a yellow-billed cuckoo was so well done that I instantly recognized the bird before reading its name later in the text. I could hear the call; it took me back to the West Virginia Appalachians where I grew up, and to the haunting song of what we then called the rain crow.

If you have any interest in birding, in wildlife, in ecology, in the Southwest, in the preservation of certain of our most precious natural areas, or in the San Pedro River itself, or if you simply have a desire to sit down and read something that can transport you to an incredibly interesting outdoor area, buy at least two copies of this book. You'll want to share it with friends, and you won't want to be without a copy yourself." - Amazon.com review

* * * *

In summer 2009 Jonathan and I are starting a new book project together, a natural history journal and essays on our years as naturalists in the remote Brown Canyon, on a national wildlife refuge. And Jonathan is still working on his book of short stories. I will be publishing these titles through my company, ConserVentures, under the impress Natural Selection Press.

I will have a few of our books available for sale soon, and meanwhile please buy our books from your favorite independent bookseller or Amazon.com.

Keeping a journal

2009-04-05T07:28:00.016-07:00

A Mini Workshop ~ Getting Started

What is a journal?

In the simplest sense, a journal is a record.

A journal can be:

• a chronicle of your daily activities - factual, or

• ephemeral - thoughts, impressions, dreams

• descriptions of sights, sounds, tastes, and smells

• it can be just words, or

• images or

• things - ticket stubs, restaurant napkins, bottle labels, stamps, feathers, leaves

• or a combination of all of the above.

There are no hard and fast rules. Rules choke you. Throw them out the window.

In this mini workshop I focus on the creativity - whether you are using traditional or electronic methods of recording.

Choosing the Format: Paper or Electronic

Advantages of a paper journal:

portability, convenience, immediacy, reliability: jot in it whenever the mood strikes
romantic, historical
tactile, 3-dimensional; vehicle for saving objects
inexpensive

Disadvantages of a paper journal:

length is finite or limited by nature
hard to reproduce or share or protect (back up)
secondary steps needed to combine images

Advantages of electronic journaling (self-contained on the computer, or on the internet, like this blog):

fast, good for words
theoretically infinite space
easy to combine with digital images
easy to add sounds and video - especially with new technology like FlipVideo
easy to back up and share

Disadvantages of electronic journaling:

not tactile
skills needed
expense (computer, software, hardware)

Tools for Journaling

Traditional Notebook Journal

Choose a journal with acid- and lignin-free paper. That will keep the pages from yellowing and the writing from fading, which will make your journal last even longer.

• Custom one (mine) - paper bought bulk, cut and drilled

• Commercial - Moleskine, Clairefontaine

Make a little tool kit. Watercolor pencils and "water brush" (a brush with a water reservoir - perfect for quick painting), pigments, glue sticks, double-tape, scissors, envelopes, Moleskine accordion file, good pens (I like Micron 02 permanent / archival black ink) as well as fountain pens and more creative ink.

Electronic Notebook Journal

Choose a product for recording your journal in your computer.

• Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages

• MacJournal and WindowsJournal by Mariner Software

• Notebook by Circusponies.com

Notebook and Mariner products allow you to publish online but work offline.

In the case of online journals, you can buy a membership in one with many tools and design options or use more basic ones for free. Here are some of the free ones:

• livejournal.com

• journalscape.com

• myspace and facebook

With these sites, you have the option of making entries public, private, or friends only. The friends-only option is readable only to other people who subscribe to the site and have you listed as a friend or who have the password that you created to protect your entries.

Just make certain that these companies do not try to 'steal' the rights to your work, that you own your material and are not giving away your ownership by 'agreeing' to their terms and conditions (Facebook famously tried to steal all rights to all words and images posted on their pages . . . )

Hybrid

Hybrid: you can create your work electronically and then use that media to publish a book.
You can combine traditional journaling - objects, receipts, labels, etc. - and affix them into the printed book.

Inkubook.com, Mac books (iPhoto) are examples of sites and services that do this.

Methode

There are two types of people - when confronted by a blank journal.

• is excited, sees open possibilities, and creative juices start flowing

• is stricken by the terror of the blank page

"Lower your standards." - William Stafford's cure for writer's block

Open that blank journal or open a new document and just begin.

But how?! Here is some advice.

First, Have a Routine

Chances are that if you are here, you yearn to be more creative in your life.

One of the best tips to focus on that is to make quiet time in your life. An hour in the morning with coffee or tea and sunrise and birdsong, writing in your journal. Or in the evening, a glass of wine and sunset.

I can’t stress enough how important that is. Even if you still are strangled or don’t know what to write - just open the pages, and record empirical things - weather, mileage, a list of wildlife or plants, names of places or people.

Use All Your Senses

If you’re really not sure how to begin recording your trip, think about what really matters to you.

Did the Muslim call to prayer you heard in Istanbul five times a day move you? Describe its sound.
Did you have an unforgettable meal in Bahia de los Angeles? Tell what you ate and describe the taste, texture, and smell of the food.
Each of us remembers or is moved by different things. For some of us it’s people - for others, animals. Ornament. Color. Light. Smells. Simply record them.
Even if all you record are the names of restaurants where you ate, the hotel where you stayed, or the people that you met, and any snippets of the language you picked up - it makes the accounts of your travel experiences much more complete.
Quotes - if you know a quote that makes you think of your destination, include that in your journal. If quotes seem beyond you, then record favorite local slang.

"Too many people delude themselves by thinking the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well. The mind is dangerous and must be left in." - Robert Frost

"Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Art is a big mistake." - Allen Ginsberg

Suggested Writing Exercises

Sometimes exercise is good for you. Here are some good ones to try if writing is tough for you and you need to break free of the Terror.

30 minutes alone:

Watch the behavior of an animal (bird, insect, squirrel...) or flowering plant or tree and write field-note style on everything you observe about that animal, without any interpretation. Fill the pages with as much "thick description" as possible. Alternatively, you could do this for a particular site, and describe the vegetation, topography, birdlife, etc., in as much detail as possible. (Knowing names of things are not so important as describing the details of what your senses take in.)

Could repeat this with different animal or plant. If you choose an animal, note something specific about its behavior, such as, record what it pays attention to that you normally do not.

Walk and Record

Walk for a few minutes (e.g. 10) in a nearby natural setting andconsider how that place connects you with someone significant in your life.Write on that connection for 20 minutes without lifting your pen from the page.

From Joan Logghe, amended by me:

1. List favorite words you like the SOUND of, first ones that flash into

your mind. 2 minutes. Go.

2. For each of these nouns, invent a simili or metaphor (is like, is)

writing the FIRST thing that flashes into your mind (this should go

rapidly, 10-15 seconds per word). You can preface this by explaining that

this is the perfect opportunity for cliches to rear their ugly heads, but

when you write _immediately_ from the senses and from the inner self (or

shadow self), our words connect with energy and power. Metaphor works at

both an intuitive and a logical level. (Eg. the lake is a potato pancake

gone cold.)

the river current

a mesa

my mother

the sky

my father

the desert

owls

the pond

a mosquito

wild horses

rain

Other ideas:

1. Write about the geography of your childhood - OR map it out with a marker on a large sheet of newsprint. 20 minutes.

2. Begin with "one true thing" and write for 15 minutes - see where it takes

you. (e.g. I wrote pieces starting with "I had an old scarf I picked up in Kathmandu," and "My father wore iddy-waddies." This can be amended to something nature-related, such as "Cottonwoods turn yellow in autumn" or "I

am in love with ravens.")

3. Write about your "fierce attachment" to a place. 20 minutes.

4. Tell who you are through landscape. "I am warm red sandstone in evening light. I am raven croaks and aspen leaves spinning on the wind. My

past is all whitewater plunging into mountain pools. My father was the moon, my mother a marsh filled with birdsong..."

Artifacts

If you are like me, you take many pictures and collect a lot of memorabilia - artifacts. By the time you arrive home, remembering everything you did each day can be almost impossible and organizing a pile of collected memorabilia can be daunting. With a little tool kit and pre-prep, it’s actually not all that hard to do it, even on the road.

Tools

Journal that will stand up to ‘stuff’ - Clairfontaine, Artist Sketchbook. Prepare pages with Gesso - every other or every third (to stand up to glue, etc). http://www.vickerey.com
Moleskine accordion file
Glassine or other envelopes
Simple glue sticks, tape, scissors
Pens, a few colored pencils (Prismacolor) or watercolor kit (mini)
Tins (old Altoid tins are perfect)

What are some items you might use?

ticket stubs
plane boarding passes
menus
food labels
information from travel brochures
coins
paper money
feathers (but remember, technically it is illegal to posses animal parts if from rare / endangered animals)
small stones
packaging
soil - for color
berries - for color

Keep it simple & everything goes.

Create pockets out of small bags you received when buying souvenirs for holding things that you don't want to cut up or adhere to the journal.

Keep the album in your bag and pull it out when ever you have some down time.

If you are traveling with others, ask them about their most memorable parts of the day; it can help you remember thing that you had forgotten about.

Artistic tips:

Use colored tissue paper to create layers - Golden Gel Medium (soft/gloss) for the adhesive, and apply the gel with a sponge brush. While the page dries, place a piece of waxed paper over it.
You can also highlight work with different types of leafing... gold, copper, etc. Adhere it with gel medium, too.
Don't get caught up in using the most/only perfect adhesive for the job; gel medium works well for almost anything. When it won't hold, use Household Goop.
Source: http://www.aisling.net
Reference: Visual Chronicles: The No-Fear Guide to Creating Art Journals, Creative Manifestos and Altered Books (Paperback) by Linda Woods (Author), Karen Dinino (Author)

What can your journal become?

Books. Articles. Personal satisfaction.

Our books, San Pedro River: a Discovery Guide, and the Southern Arizona Nature Almanac were both created largely from my daily nature and travel journals.

Final thoughts

Words are powerful. The moment an ephemeral thought or observation is captured and applied to physical existence, that thought or idea or fact takes on another dimension.

It has weight, can be used, passed on, accessed. Most good essays begin with a journal or field book entry.

Another good reason to keep a journal is that, by paying attention to and recording life’s events around you, you tie yourself more firmly to place—be it your back yard or a whole mountain range.