All posts by Brush Man

With more art in America's National Parks than any other artist.
Waysides, Wildlife

Dismal Nitch – Chinook Salmon Story

I like this Chinook salmon painting but it’s going to change, so I thought I’d post it here so at least there’s a memory of it. What’s wrong with it, you ask, well, the National Park Service says it’s not fat enough! Welcome to MY life, and I guess I’d agree. They have some compelling reasons – so, back to the easel.


Here’s the entire fish. The final painting will go on one of seven waysides stands at the Dismal Nitch area beside the Columbia Estuary, part of Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. This is where ‘The Corps’, in 1804, spent a week hunkered down, starving, wet and miserable before a group of Chinook Indians paddled by and sold them some salmon. It’s a good story, and one I knew from my childhood when Virginia wrote a book about the wildlife and flora this bunch found and named, not to mention the Lewis River, Clark’s Fork and others. Now, here I am 50 years later painting exhibit art for the same place! The apples didn’t fall far from her tree, did they?

This painting of spawning salmon is one of over a dozen I’ve painted in the past couple of years, most for salmon restoration areas around the Salish Sea where I live. I’ve gotten much better at understanding these amazing fish and what they look like, how they live and suffer in their final days in fresh water. They feed us, they feed the riverside forest trees and all the creatures that live next to salmon streams. They’re not a gift to be taken lightly.

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
Larry Eifert

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 stunning photography

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

New Published Story, Wildlife

Anemones – My monthly magazine story for August 2018

I’m a bit late on posting some of my 48 North magazine stories. Just too many interesting paintings happening that always seem more current. This one was the story pages back in August, so that meant I painted it in June. I promise, I’ll catch up to current soon.

And here’s just the art. It’s watercolor and pencil, brightened up with the computer before assembling the story with a readable font. I’ve tried this with my own lettering but it’s just not nearly as readable. 48 North magazine is here.

I have over 70 stories in past issues and you can read them on my website here.

I did another plumose anemone story before this one. Here it is from 2027,

And here’s the story:

Plumose Anemone

Look down the closest piling at low tide and chances are good you’ll see these animals. Yes, they animals, animals that look like flowers. Animals with deadly stinging tentacles that can move around and even grab, kill and eat small fish. There are many species of anemones in the Salish Sea, some tiny inch-wide creatures that congregate in colorful crowds, others can be two feet tall. The plumose averages a respectful 12” tall and can have up to 100 tentacles that sting and grab any morsel that floats by. The meal, often microscopic, is then transferred down into a waiting mouth, throat and stomach to be consumed. Remember Little Shop of Horrors? This is an oceanic equivalent, except there are millions of them under our docks and floats. Low tide might expose them to air, in which case they sort of fold up like a deflated balloon and wait for the incoming tide.

Anemones can move about, leaving one spot behind when it senses danger or a lack of food. When it does, it simply walks off, but leaves behind some anemone DNA and from this a new anemone will grow. In summer, it also creates and releases sperm and eggs that drift around until ‘things happen’. This animal is well-armed, as I said. It possesses two types of stinging tentacles, the most common is for stinging prey, a second set is for defense. These can elongate 2 or 3 times their length and reach out to attach anything passing by – think stinging nettles on your favorite river trail. Others from inside the body can be shot through the body column or mouth to do the same attacking. Basically, this beautiful animal may look great but it’s a killer if you’re a small witless creature swimming past. So, here’s the drill: at low tide, put your stomach on the dock, peep down the piling well and have a look for yourself. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
Larry Eifert

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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Lime Kiln Point – Orca Wayside Art in the San Juan Islands

This painting is one of four for Lime Kiln State Park, west side of San Juan Island and Friday Harbor. If you want to see whales in the Northwest without getting on a boat, this is the place. Well, technically, you have to get on a ferry to get to the island, but you get the point. On a summer day, there can be hundreds of people lined up here on the cliff to watch the killer whale show right in front of them – and soon they’ll also be immersed in my paintings as well. 

After adding the text to the panel, words and art go together fairly well on this one. Two panels are in the six-foot range, but this one is half that. The others are coming soon and I’ll try to post them as we go along.

I lived six summers in Friday Harbor when my first bigger boat, 40′ sloop “October” was here – and I had my gallery in Ferndale, Ca. This was in the 80’s, and I learned to paint the Northwest here. I’d go out to Lime Kiln Point and watch these big guys come right up to shore. Later, when Nancy and I lived on our 45′ Monk “Rumpy”, we’d come up from Port Townsend and lucky timing once put us here when an entire pod was too. We stopped the boat, turned off the engine and watched, shocked, as the entire family casually swam under us. The big male was bigger than the boat, or so it seemed. No one touched, we were thrilled, dry mouths and all. And now my art goes on shore. Paint hard, live long and connections like this happen all the time. I’m constantly thrilled at this life-long deep connection to nature. Not much matters more except the lovely person I share this with!

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

Jigsaw Puzzles, Murals, Waysides, Wildlife

A New Puzzle for the North Olympic Salmon Coalition

A new puzzle arrived for our local salmon restoration group and we high-jacked a few of them for us. I guess you could call it a ‘Limited Edition’. This non-profit puts restoration projects together with partners with funds to help Olympic Peninsula watersheds, and they’re just about the best bunch of folks we know around here.

Last year I did some art and designs for a series of wayside panels that completed a major habitat restoration in the estuary of Discovery Bay on the Olympic Peninsula (that’s the bay in the background of the puzzle). They decided that a jigsaw puzzle might be a perfect way to spread the word about this and raise some money. Very progressive attitude, and a perfect way to showcase some of this art.  I did the design, and below is the box back – learn about salmon and restoration, all in one.

Here’s the box front. I used three paintings, melded them together and I think it’s a fairly difficult puzzle. 

And below is one of the paintings installed. Thousands of salmon migration barriers are on streams and rivers in the Northwest. This project opened up two streams and help these fish return to spawn a next generation.  NOSC removed 1900 tons of rock, 425 tons of contaminated soils,  added 3200 feet of a community waterline and lots more. It was a big project – and I was proud to be a small part of it by providing some interpretive art. We also handled the fabrication and printing, all in a day’s work for me.

If you’d like a puzzle, you can order it here on our website. Or, call Nicole O’Hara at NOSC, (360) 379-8051 and get one as a donation to this great group. Then, if you’re local, get out here and have a look at all this.

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Acorn Woodpeckers – Waka Waka Waka

“Tending their graineries”.  I haven’t painted these interesting birds in years, and a private commission presented an opportunity to that just that. I was first made aware of these crazy guys when I was teaching painting at the Yosemite Association back in the early 80’s. A big deal for me, I was in the old historic railroad building at El Portal to meet the Executive Director and try to make a decent impression. He had a marvelous second story office, old wood paneling, a big railroad desk, casement windows. In the middle of the conversation, he suddenly got up and started pounding on the walls, first one then another. No explanation and he didn’t even break up a sentence. Later I found out it was acorn woodpeckers trying to store nuts in the knotholes, probably been doing it a hundred years! And I’ve been in love with these clown-faced birds since.

And then the buyer, who has been trying to get another original painting from me since, he says, 1990. What took so long I’m  not sure, but I’m glad to help out. Yes, these birds actually drill holes in dead snags and dry their acorns, hundreds of them and often in drilled rows like sapsuckers do as well. Yaka, yaka, yaka. Once heard, never forgotten.

Yes, I do private commissions on occasion. If you’re interested, just let me know, and be patient (but not 30 years).

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post

El Malpais National Monument sketch #2

Revision time – stay with me on this. I know this isn’t in color, but pencil drawing is almost a lost skill, and I’m still fairly good with it. Lots of people ask me how it is to work for the National Park Service. Well, it’s like a bunch of bananas, there’s good and bad, sometimes in the same bunch. So far, this project has been all good!

A few posts ago, I showed the first detailed sketch for this New Mexico painting, the one below. Now the park has made requests for changes, with plenty of ‘please’s. An entirely new sketch was called for.  No complaints, all their thoughts were valid, and some things I just plain forgot to add. The top sketch was submitted this week for a second review. What’s the difference? Bigger cave, straightened the right tree, removed the left tree, cliff bigger, and most of all, an aspen – Douglas-fir grove on the left with plenty of a’a lava. That’s the lava that looks impossible to walk on, and is (see the photo below). At El Malpais National Monument, it’s mixed with lots of pahoehoe, the ropy lava that flows like water in its molten form. This place, west of Albuquerque, has 400 lava caves, so it was important to show more of that, too.Below, our guide-ranger in a mass of a’a lava. Impossible to walk on, impossible to paint! Somewhere in this mess is my phone, still sitting where it fell out of my pack and, for me, gone forever! And below a pot shard from one of the almost-invisible pueblo ruins. They wanted more of these, which is shown in the new sketch along the foreground. This piece was just sitting on the ground and is probably over 1000 years old. The hand-painted lines are far more skilled than modern pots from the same tribe that are made for tourists.

Soon, I’ll get either a go-ahead on the final art, or a request for some additional changes – not likely anything imposing. Too many pronghorn, a smaller peregrine falcon, stuff like that. I’m eager to paint this because, as usual, I’ll get a chance to relive the very tasty experience of going there this past summer.

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Chickadee and Our Apple Tree

{sorry, it’s sold}

This painting is now available. We have a half dozen apple trees in our little meadow. They were planted by the original couple who built the place, and I’d guess they were set in the ground in the mid-1980’s. All are reaching maturity at 30, and starting to look very artistic with twists and turns, tortured branches and mossy parts. The deer yank on the apples and lower branches and we used to try to fend them off – but we’ll take the deer over apples any day, so now we just enjoy them all.

Our local chestnut-backed chickadees and nuthatches also enjoy the trees as well for the bugs that come in for the fall sweetness, so I wanted to show that in this painting. The original idea was to have an apple or two, fall red and contrasting with the chestnut colors of the bird, but the apples are just too big. So, the leaves took the apples place. I can stand right next to these trees and the birds don’t notice, or at least mind. They’d probably sit on my finger if it had an insect.

Here’s the custom frame and mat for the painting. It’s about 12″ x 15″ on the outside and a triple custom mat. We’re offering it for $195 with a bit of shipping (usually Priority mail). If you’re interested, just email me at larry@larryeifert.com.

And this is one of the branches of this tree, the one by the pump shed. Almost ready to eat, whoever gets there first, the squirrels, deer, thrushes – or us!

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post

American Goldfinch – Sunflower

2018-8-25 American Goldfinch

{This painting is sold}

A new painting. A little story to go with it. We have American Goldfinches here in our meadow that come to the seed feeders. Red squirrels, gray squirrels and Townsend’s chipmunks are here as well. Some get a mouthful of seeds and run over to Nancy’s summer flower pots – bury them for some later meal – first-rate horders. Some seeds grow, most don’t, but of course Nancy doesn’t uproot them – every plant gets a chance around here.

Recently, a goldfinch decided to short-cut the process, forget the feeder and come straight for the giant seed-grocery.  The sunflower just dwarfed the bird and smaller flowers beneath it, and I think this shows the collective and frantic growing energy of the Northwest in summer – grow fast and die, or head south. Soon, this bird will head for warmer winter digs, the sunflower will be toast, but for now, it was a painting waiting to happen.

2018-8-25-Goldfinch-and-Sunflower-framed

This painting is in a custom pecan frame, has a triple mat and is  under glass. It’s outside measurements are 12″ x 15″. If you’d like this painting, just email me at larry@larryeifert.com.  It’s $195, framed and shipping is included if shipped within the U.S. Yes, freight free, usually Priority Mail!

If you’re Facebook friends with Nancy, you’ll likely notice an almost identical painting on her feed. We painted these two together on the same table – and we’re still married!

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

Jigsaw Puzzles, Murals, New Painting Post, Wildlife

The Salish Sea – a New Jigsaw Puzzle

A new puzzle arrived  yesterday, called The Salish Sea. This is a section of a painting I did for the Whidbey Island Land Trust and shows the rather amazing underwater (and normally unseen by us) ecosystem just offshore between Port Townsend and Coupeville, Washington. There are a LOT of critters stuffed in this painting and it should make for a good puzzle. Below is the box back, as interpretive as I could get it. The puzzle is 24″ x 18″ and has 500 pieces. 

This place, a stark and diverse shoreline, gets the full brunt of storms and waves coming right down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It’s part of the Admiralty Inlet Natural Area and has a harsh vibrancy about it that I just love. It was fun to paint.

People send us these photos from time to time.

All these images enlarge in your browser if you click them.

You can order from our online store here: or by emailing us if you want to send a check here: larry@larryeifert.com.

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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post

Little Chickadee – Giant Trees

{this painting is sold – thanks, Michael}

A new painting, a portrait of one of the ‘cloud’ of chickadees that gather regularly here each day – right outside my studio. Each bird is slightly different in personality – each slightly different in ‘flitterings’ and all are a joy to watch. In these Northwestern forests, where the trees are giants and organic matter constantly rains down, these little birds have evolved to fit their world perfectly. Nuthatches, creepers, chickadees of three varieties, they all ‘hang’ together for safety. When you’re a tiny bird, there’s safety in solidarity.

The branch this chickadee is on sports lungwort, a lichen that grows into lettuce-like sheets of ‘air plants’. Some fall to the ground each winter during storms. They don’t have roots or solid attachments of any major sort, but exist by taking nutrients and water from the air. Some loberia can be a square foot in size. Once on the ground, they leach nutrients into the soil, then used by the very trees they once grew on. You won’t see these plants in a younger forest as it takes many years for them to grow – so if you see lung wort and chickadees together, you’re in an old-soul place.

Too much science? How about a nice painting?

If you’d like this original painting, an acrylic on board, it’s outside dimensions are about 12″ x 15″ and has this pecan frame. It has a custom triple mat and is under glass. We’re offering it for $195 including the frame and shipping is free within the US (usually Priory Mail). We take all sorts of payment types, just email at larry@larryeifert.com if you’re interested.

If I stand still and watch these birds, and get close, I’m struck by the noise they make when flying. “Whirrrrrrl” or try rattling your tongue, it gets pretty close to how it sounds for them. It’s relatively loud, all that air rushing about. Think what the bird hears, with ears within an inch of all that feather-flapping. It must be deafening and I wonder if that’s why they only fly short distances, to land and be able to hear again – to check if life is still safe.

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
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 stunning photography

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