Grand Marais Bay

The smooth, flat rocks that line the north shore around Grand Marais Bay, in Minnesota, provide a unique beach experience.  For those with tremendous arm strength, the majority of beach rocks are the perfect shape for "skipping" across the surface of the water.  These gems are smooth and flat, and range in size from about the size of a quarter to a utility-size tire. 

Grand Marais Bay - Pencil, .5 black micron pen, and Inktense pencils on 300 series Strathmore mixed media paper.  Click on image to enlarge. 

The color of north shore rocks are also beautiful and reveal the rich iron they contain.  A range of rusty siennas to deep indigo blue-grays abound.

Grand Marais Bay - Pencil, .5 black micron pen, and Inktense pencils on 300 series Strathmore mixed media paper.  Click on image to enlarge. 

Between Grand Marais and Duluth is a large tachonite processing plant.  At any given time when the ice in not lining the shoreline, you can look out into the lake and see mammoth ore barges headed to the smelters of the mid-west and east and out through the St. Lawrence. Generally, those freighters headed east are riding low and filled with tons and tons of tachonite, while those headed west are empty and headed into port to spend the week loading. 

Grand Marais Bay - Pencil, .5 black micron pen, and Inktense pencils on 300 series Strathmore mixed media paper.  Click on image to enlarge. 

I am not sure if the little stone lining the bigger rocks is really representative of the patterns found along the shoreline.  I'll claim "artistic license" to make the image more visually appealing! 

Grand Marais Bay - Pencil, .5 black micron pen, and Inktense pencils on 300 series Strathmore mixed media paper.  Click on image to enlarge.