Dipper Fishing – A new acrylic painting on canvas

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Larry Eifert

SOLD

We’re soon off for a field trip to Sitka, Alaska for field research, but I wanted to post one last painting before we left. It’s one of those I delight in painting – a little corner of nature involving the reflective quality of water in motion.

The motivation for this painting came at a trail head in Olympic National Park when Nancy spied a sign telling of an American Dipper research project going on there, and that we were to watch out for dippers with leg bands – and armed with which color banding, if it’s on the left or right foot (THEIR left and right, not OURS – it said that), we were to call someone and tell when what we saw. Have you EVER tried to watch a dipper. They sit still for about a microsecond, bouncing up and down, and never very close to you. So I did a dipper painting without a leg band!

 

 

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $145 unframed.

 

The color’s a bit off, but this shows the custom frame with a linen liner that would make it a total of $170 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Or click here to follow me on Facebook. I post lots of other stuff there.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

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The Artist’s View – Eifert’s 48North Page for June, 2013

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Larry Eifert

Recently we were in the Seattle Aquarium and while Nancy was photographing the yearling sea otter, I spent some time in the tidal tank area with my sketchbook. This is one of my favorite Seattle-places, almost as good as the Woodland Park Zoo. I’ve spent hours in here drawing and just watching life go on in the big salt water exhibits. So, from that came this little sketch showing the community of critters that live there on one of the pilings. This is all raw ocean water that gets piped into the aquarium, and it’s all unfiltered so much of the marine life comes in naturally. As I was drawing this, I realized everything in front of me was either trying to eat everyone else, or trying to just hide so as to not be eaten. What a scary place to live – so I wrote about it for my monthly story in 48-North magazine.

 

And here’s my original sketch before I added watercolor to it as an underlay. Lets see: plumose anemones, kelp crabs, pile perch, acorn barnacles, ochre star, little brown barnacles and a hermit crab or two. Got it!

And just in case you missed it last week, here’s our newest puzzle, ”A Walk on the Wild Side” for Fort Townsend State Park, the old-growth forest park near us here on the Olympic Peninsula. Check it out here on the website. And thanks, everyone, for the initial interest in this new interpretive puzzle. Very gratifying.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to. And you can follow me on Facebook where I just posted a new hiking album.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

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A NEW Jigsaw Puzzle for Summer 2013

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Larry Eifert

 

 

Oh Boy! Announcing a new Eifert mural puzzle – and it’s now available on our website. If you live on the Olympic Peninsula, email us and we can arrange pickup or delivery so you can avoid shipping – and I’ll even sign the box if you want. You might remember my posts a few months ago about completing this mural for our local old-growth forest park, Fort Townsend State Park and funded by the Friends Group and the Washington Native Plant Society. Now this painting is available for some serious close study as a new 500-piece, 18″ x 24″ jigsaw puzzle. There’s a LOT going on in this image and it should be fun – and the box back makes for a very good interpretive study – even a field guide.

 

 

And here’s the box back showing the “good stuff” as one of my park-ranger-friends calls it. You really can use it as a field guide – and I admit I already have when I forgot one of these rare plants I saw on the trail the other day.

The original mural is installed in the park, and a large exhibit is at the entrance station too. I’m proud of this one, because it’s in my backyard. Rarely do I ever get to see my paintings after they leave the studio, but this is my ‘morning walking place’, and it’s fun to see it there.

Thanks for reading this week. I counted, and I believe this is my 72nd painting made into an interpretive jigsaw puzzle – wow.

Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to. And you can follow me on Facebook too. Lots of other stuff there, like trail albums and trip logs.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

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A Light in the Forest

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Larry Eifert

There’s a 16″ image on the web to view – just click on the painting.

“Light in the Forest” is an original acrylic painting on canvas, 24″ x 48″. This started  this week with the reference photo below that I took at Sol Duc Valley in Olympic National Park. A droopy trillium flower, a few non-flowering False Lily-of-the-Valley plants, some sword ferns – but I liked the idea of a big shaft of bright sun illuminating a lush springtime old-growth forest. I think I need to work on this just a bit more, but I’m close to getting there. It may be a tad over the top with details, but I couldn’t help but to add a calypso orchid, just because it’s my favorite forest flower – and a Pacific wren, one of my favorite forest birds. These little guys are only about 3 inches long, yet sing an astoundingly-loud sizzling song that seems to go on forever. The poor little bird had its name changed a few years ago when some new genetic testing reveled the birds here on the West Coast are different than the eastern birds. No respect!

 

 

This is the original painting, NOT a print. If you’re interested in purchasing this, contact us.

 

 

We’re offering “Light in the Forest” for $1200 with our custom-built hemlock frame. Shipping will add a bit more, but since it’s on canvas, it’s light.

Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to. Or follow me on Facebook here.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

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Mississippi Calling – A New Ebook by Larry Eifert’s Mom

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Larry Eifert


 This is the fifth of twenty I’ve now made available for Kindle and Nook, and your phone, tablet or computer – published this week. Made a new cover, added photos – and I discovered it’s still a very good read. In 1957 I was 11 when this was first published – now after all these years I just have to wonder what my mom would think at all of today’s digital stuff. She traveled over 6,500 miles on Mississippi towboats, hand-writing field notes in journals and taking amazing photos with her little film Roliflex camera. The original manuscript plus rewrites were on her MANUAL Underwood, written mostly at night when I was asleep (and quiet). Today, I’m republishing her book on a 3.4 GHz pc, Photoshoping a new cover by taking her original photo and scanning a watercolor beneath it on layer 4, just beneath the titles. What I could have done for her!

 

For the added photos, I dug out a huge box of her old custom 8 x 10 enlargements. Here’s one from the 50′s, an amazing steam-powered towboat still burning coal. There are also some interesting images of New Orleans from that period, plus some other period river and towboat shots.

While ‘River World” (republished a couple of months ago) was about the Mississippi’s nature, this book is about the people who discovered it, changed it, fought over it or lived beside it. Several stories are about finding the river’s source, or not! One chapter is about the woman that ran one of the largest river canals in America – 150 years ago. Another is about Nauvoo, Illinois and the story of the failed Mormon colony, then failed French Icarian (socialist) community. My family came from that Icarian group.

If you’d like to see this book on Amazon.com, click here for Kindle. Barnes and Noble’s Nook is coming soon. And thanks, everyone, for supporting this project.

For more information about Virginia, check her web site at http://virginia.larryeifert.com.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was published to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

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