A second Yellowstone Climate Change painting is evolving on my easel now. The last mural a few weeks ago was about the high elevation whitebark pine forests there and the mass die-off that threatens an entire ecosystem. This one is about the lodgepole pine forests and how Climate Change is threatening that natural community. The center of interest is the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring, biggest hot spring in America. How will Climate Change effect this? Low water levels in summer may possibly turn it into a giant dry brown hole. Broken, burned and dead lodgepole pine forests are happening everywhere in the West, but the giant fires a few years ago in Yellowstone showed something was seriously amiss. As Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior stated: “The entire West is one giant tinderbox waiting to go off!” So, I’m trying to show all this with art. Not easy, but definitely worthwhile if I can pull it off.

And here’s the initial laying in of the concept with paint. Distant background is beginning to take shape.

And here’s the original sketch. I blogged about it before here.

Next week, Christmas or not, I’ll be closing in on finishing (I hope). Happy Holidays to everyone and thanks for helping two artists make a living at what they both love. It wasn’t the best year for us, thanks to the Sequester and Shutdown, but we’re still alive and kicking – and looking forward to a better one coming up.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Here’s the blog on the web.  And here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

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

Nancy’s web portfolio of beautiful photographs

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