No post last week – just too busy. But this just came off the easel today and will be sent out tomorrow for approval, so let’s get your approval as well.

This is going to Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska. My task here was to paint the ocean form of the humpbacked or pink salmon in a realistic way so it looks like it’s the real deal. I also painted the eggs, alevin and fry in the same manner, but I’ll post those later. This one seemed to have gotten that pretty well. There was some debate about the shine. If it’s out of the water, it would shine, but in the water this fish wouldn’t shine anywhere. In fact, they look pretty dull and camouflaged, and needs to be or it would be a seal’s meal. After I scanned it and looked at the reference photos (about 25 of them), I thought that the fish might need to be more reddish since my scanner is always on the cool side. So Photoshop did that, and now I’m not sure.

So here’s that second version with the red.

Art is always like that. There’s no THERE there. You never know when it’s finished, or if it’s ‘right’, since there is no ‘right’ – just someone else’s opinion. Years ago, in the Eifert Gallery in California, a woman came in and went right around the main exhibit hall.  I happened to be upstairs on the mezzanine and overheard her comment as she went around the room: “Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong” she declared in a voice that I thought was louder than necessary. It was a teachable moment for me, because I realized my confidence had grown and I was solidly in command of my feelings, and what did she know – nothing more than I did, and probably less.

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.