An oldie from a drawing looking out to Georgian Bay from the Thirty Thousand Islands, an archipelago on the east side of the Bay. A very peaceful place to sit and sketch.
Category Archives: Canoeing
Dark Shore
Stretching up the east side of Georgian Bay is an archipelago called the ‘30,000 Islands’. I haven’t counted them but viewed from an airplane it seems there could be that many.
However, if you’re still out in a canoe after dusk the 30,000 become one large, never ending island and good luck finding the island you camped on. That meal you’re longing for is there just waiting to be cooked and eaten :- )
Shoreline
Something new for me. Rather than an engraving, a lithoprint using a ‘Pronto-plate’.
This was a 2 colour trial print titled ‘Shoreline’. Still lots and lots and lots to learn.
My Kinda storm…
It was all happening on paper inside while the cold and storm was happening outside!
Misty morning
One morning I canoed out into a thick fog and down a wide channel towards open water. When I left the channel and headed towards the shore islands slowly began to appear out of the fog. It was quite magical.
This is a 27×14.5 cm, five colour reduction print.
Last Light
I had a spatula of dark ink after cleaning up from printing and ‘painted’ this tree with it. I liked the tree so I created a background for it.
Luther Marsh
The Luther Marsh is a large, man made lake that affords sanctuary for many, many birds, migratory and otherwise. Areas of it still have the trees that died when the area was flooded and some of these support nests like the Blue Heron nest in my print.
More rock, more Georgian Bay
A few posts ago I had a sketch of some rock in the north end of the Georgian Bay; here’s a nine colour, 9×12 engraving from that sketch. Sit still long enough to sketch and birds come by, turtles, lizards and snakes poke their heads out from hiding and, usually, an enormous ant takes a bite of some bit of exposed butt cheek.
Rockface
It must be February, the winter seems never ending so I haul out the sketchbooks and imagine myself doing lichen impressions on a rock in Georgian Bay or thereabouts. This is one such rock in one of my reflective moods.
Ink Wash
Gallery

This gallery contains 10 photos.
The ubiquitous cedar.
Georgian Bay conjures up visions of pines bent from the incessant wind but the very edge of the Bay is populated by tough little cedar trees that somehow defy some very nasty winter winds to grow in little or, seemingly, no earth.
The Bay, The Bay, aaaaahhhh, The Bay
A week camping and canoeing through the Georgian Bay archipelago brushes stress away like a broom through cobwebs. Perfect canoe weather with lots of sun and more sun and even more sun.
OMG!!! It’s September already.
After visiting the cheek to jowl State campgrounds in New York and Pennsylvania in August, it was a treat to canoe out into the peace and quiet of northern Georgian Bay’s archipelago.
At some point in the past some really, really, strong individuals arranged a few really, really, massive stones into a fireplace complete with seating with, of course, a wonderful view. The sketch was an attempt to capture the tangle of trees on the opposite shore.
Sentinel
Northern Morning
No matter how nice an air mattress I drag along when I’m camping I wake up about 4:30 – 5:00 am then turn from side to side to side like a rotisserie, trying to get comfortable. I never do so I get up. The upside is that I have lots of drawings done in the early morning calm. I liked the tree in this sketch and so, pining for the north, so to speak, engraved it. It’s 6.5×9 with five tones of grey ink on Stonehenge paper.