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 :- )
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.
It was all happening on paper inside while the cold and storm was happening outside!
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.
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. 
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.
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.
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.
This gallery contains 10 photos.
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.
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. 
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.
At the moment, what I like about this print is the total absence of snow. Perhaps even more is that it reminds me of a sunny afternoon sitting on a huge rock with a friend drawing rocks and trees and water and rocks and trees and water, but mostly enjoying the sun.
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.
As you move away from the mainland to the edge of eastern Georgian Bay the pines give way to cedars and vast expanses of rock ground smooth by glaciers. I spent a few days canoeing, enjoying the sun, doing ink washes of cedars and trying not to scratch multiple spider bites.
