Kayak Campsites
Other than the first image, this page will celebrate drawings and paintings of actual kayak campsites illustrated from memory.
Each will be a drawing and a painting.
The first one: Fiddle Paddle, is to be the only imaginary kayak campsite in this series.
Imaginary !!
Fiddle Paddle
- drawing
This was drawn in the Monday morning Drawing Bee on Monday, May 14th, 2012. It is an imaginary kayak campsite.
See if you can spot all the animals.
There is a raccoon, turtle, oppossum, fish, moose, and wolf, but there is not any birds.
- painting
I omitted the bush on the left, and the animals.
<--- I was recently able to dig out this original from 2006 !
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay - September 1987?
This is of a real overnight stop, from memory, from a solo paddling trip on Georgian Bay, out north from Honey Harbour. I wanted to head up the east shore of Georgian Bay, but I found the steady waves, once beyond the lee of the islands, to be too much. I was also, as always, concerned about bears, so I decided to overnight on this small island and hope bears wouldn't bother to swim.
I stayed out a second night, which I intend to draw and paint this coming week, on an island amongst many islands just north of Honey Harbour.
- drawing 001
-painting 001 -
I guess it's early to bed and early to rise !
I'm asleep before sunset under the orange fly supported by the kayak on the left side of me. The paddle sticks out to the right side of me.
This painting took less than three hours.
2012-05-24
2012-05-24 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-05-24 paintinggrayscaled 8x10 300dpi.jpg
- drawing 002
This is where I camped the next night after the previous painting. It is south of where I was, closer to Honey Harbour. The back side of this towering island in a channel, was not as steep so I climbed up to the level area at the top from the back side. There were a lot of cottages in the area, so this was prime real estate to me as I searched for a suitable overnight spot.
This painting will require a lot of control of the values to distinguish the various islands in the majority of the image. This is intended to be a morning image, with the sun rising over the right shoulder of the viewer, and just striking the tops of the trees.
2012-05-28
2012-05-28 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
- painting 002
2012-05-31 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-05-31 paintinggrayscaled 8x10 300dpi.jpg
Georgian Bay - August 1985
In August of 1985 I paddled out from the extended family's cottage on Alban Road west of Waubaushene. I paddled over to Honey Harbour and began a search for a campsite early in the day, as I made better time than I thought I would. I checked out Beausolei Island National Park, but I did not want to pay for a campsite there.
This little "island" was really just a large group of rocks that seemed to not really be claimed by anyone. Except for a few sumac and perhaps a yew or two there was nothing growing and all the waterskiers could see me parked there as they went by.
I didn't put up any shelter and just slept on the rock after my cold can of beans, some cheese, some apples and some water. The next day I paddled back and went straight across Sturgeon Bay to approach the cottage, Willimore, directly from the horizon. My Aunt Barb was on the deck to watch me come in from afar.
- drawing
2012-06-04 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-06-14 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-06-14 paintinggrayscaled 8x10 300dpi.jpg
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario - September 1986
My first Lake Ontario outing was open ended and began shortly after the school season began . I left from the Old Mill on the Humber and paddled out to the Scarborough Bluffs by late evening. The beach was too small to camp on, but I found this decommisioned concrete pumphouse that had a nice lawn where people had campfires. I claimed it and hoped I would not be disturbed. The next day I paddled as far as Port Whitby, but not being accustomed to so much time in the cockpit, I began to wear the bottom off of the kayak by frequently beaching it for breaks. I called to be picked up in Port Whitby, and resurfaced the bottom of my kayak at the family trailer in Buckhorn, on the Trent-Severn Waterway. From there I headed west along the Trent Severn Waterway.
-drawing
Monday 2012-06-18
2012-06-18 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-06-21 8x10 72dpi
2012-06-21 8x10 grayscaled 72dpi
Lake Ontario - February-March 1986
I tried to overnight in the late winter, but I decided after starting out, to stay close rather than head out to the Toronto Islands. Being a large public beach along Lakeshore Boulevard, I could not set up a camp, so I hid under a picnic table and endured the later winter rain amongst the snowdrifts.
2012-06-25
-drawing
Monday 2012-06-25
2012-06-25 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-06-28
This painting, amongst other problems, has a serious structural problem in the picnic table - see if you can spot it.
I will do this painting again, to correct it, probably this week.
2012-06-28 10x8 72dpi grayscaled
- painting
2012-07-12 10x8 72dpi
2012-07-12 10x8 72dpi grayscale
Trent - Severn Waterway - September 1986
Sturgeon Lake
I was hard pressed to find a campsite this night, with so many cottages along the shores, but a road came next to the southern shore so I chose to camp between the road and the shore. Just to be on the safe side, I knocked on the door of the house opposite my site to get their O.K. for me to overnight there.
-drawing
2012-07-16 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-07-19 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-07-19 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
2012-06-28 10x8 72dpi grayscaled
Balsalm Lake
I chose to camp on the island in the middle of Balsalm Lake for the solitude, but after I set up camp I found cow paddies all over and spent the night worried that a cow would wander into my camp. As well, a boat decided to anchor in the bay of this island, within sight of my camp, for the night.
-drawing
2012-07-23 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-07-26 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-07-26 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
2012-06-28 10x8 72dpi grayscaled
Talbot Lock
This was where I ended my three day sojourn in September 1986. I only put up the tarp because of the downpour that persisted while I waited to be picked up. My father arrived around ten o'clock at night, as I waited tending a candle in the darkness beyond the light at the lock.
-drawing
2012-07-30 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-08-02 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-08-02 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
2012-06-28 10x8 72dpi grayscaled
Sleeping overnight in my kayak, on the water . .. .
At least twice, I have slept overnight in my kayak, on the water. Here are two instances where I was uncomfortable with going on shore to overnight, either because there was not any suitable site, or I was just to lazy to set up camp.
Sturgeon Bay, August 1989
This night in August, I slept well out from shore, and for the obnoxiousness of it, I smacked my paddle on the water through the night to hear the echo off of the shore.
-drawing
2012-08-13 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-08-16 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-08-16 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
Labour Day Weekend, 1992
I slept along the Scarborough Bluffs, east of Ashbridges Bay, on Lake Ontario, in my kayak, overnight, because I couldn't be bothered to make camp on a cobble beach. In the morning, at dawn, I went ashore and slept more on the cobbles.
Try to find me in this picture, as I hold onto a willow branch througout the night, to keep from drifting.
- drawing
2012-08-20 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-08-23 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-08-23 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
Lake Ontario - January 1987?
Mimico Park
That January I pushed around large sheets of ice at the mouth of Mimico Creek. I tried to get them out into the lake to watch them break up in the larger waves there.
-drawing
2012-08-27 8x10 72dpi.jpg
- painting
2012-09-06 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-09-06 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
Algonquin Park, Ontario, July 1991
First Campsite , Rain Lake
In 1991 I took a brief break from Autocad and drove my kayak to the north west entrance of Algonquin Park, arrived in the evening, and the sun was setting as I headed out onto Rain Lake to grab the first campsite I could find. I set up as the sun went down, so I was lucky there was a site available right away.
-drawing
2012-09-10 8x10 72dpi.jpg
-painting
2012-09-13 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-09-13 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
Second campsite, first day, first painting
Reluctant to haul all the gear around again, I stayed at the same camp where I cooked, ate and painted . There was a nudist couple across the channel, and another campsite across the lake on the right. This campsite was on a peninsula that I hoped would be too out of the way for a bear to bother with.
-drawing
2012-09-17 8x10 72dpi.jpg
-painting
2012-09-20 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-09-20 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
Second campsite, first day, second painting
This drawing and painting illustrate myself, with a ponytail and a beard that should be in almost all of the other paintings, completing a painting that I included in my portfolio that got me into Sheridan College's Animation Program.
-drawing
2012-09-24 8x10 72dpi 2X -50B +30C.jpg
-painting
2012-09-27 8x10 72dpi.jpg
2012-09-27 8x10 72dpi grayscale.jpg
This concludes the Kayak Campsite series of watercolours .