All posts by Brush Man

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

Fish Feast for Ludington State Park in Michigan

[Click on the finished painting to enlarge it – I put a much bigger version on the web so you can see details]

I’ve been painting fish, a lot of fish!  This is for Ludington State Park in Michigan and is part of three images that total 18 feet long. This one is for kids, but it really could be a fish-who’s-who for anyone. The Vienna that went down a century ago, yes, there really is a ship wreck there that looks like this. And, yes, they really have Chinook and Coho Salmon, and a bunch of other alien fish that have either been planted or let loose and are now creating havoc in Lake Michigan.

Double-crested Cormorant by Larry Eifert
Small-mouthed Bass by Larry Eifert

We decided that the fish might be used in other Michigan State Parks in other interpretive projects, so I painted the fish and the cormorant separately, then floated them over the background digitally. That means they can use them any size or placement in all sorts of ways – sort of a fine-art digital mashup.

Chinook Salmon by Larry Eifert

I’m always asked how the heck Larry Eifert in Port Townsend Washington gets to paint fish in Michigan. Well, this project came from Joan at Genesis Graphics in Michigan, a long time supporter of what I like to do – and then through Theresa at Michigan State Parks in the  Upper Peninsula. Theresa was very nice to work with and we seemed to hit it off – so I hope to do more for them. So, the final installation will be at Ludington down on the west side of lower Michigan right on the lake – not 30 miles from where I lived for awhile in Door County Wisconsin. Small world.

And it’s an ever-widening circle of friends that keeps me going.

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.

New Painting Post

Rufous-sided Towhee – Our Feeder Buddy

Many of you know that I like to paint from experiences. These birds: they’re just so . . .  full of themselves. Or so it seems. We have a family of these guys here that spend their entire lives not 30 feet from the big six-foot tray feeder. Recently, one, possibly the kid from last year, showed up without it’s long and almost gaudy tail, hobbling around and looking truly messed up. The local sharp-shinned hawk if I had to guess. But in a few weeks there were new tail feathers and the limp was gone. So, here he is in a painting.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

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.

New Painting Post

Alpineglow

Another painting in my ‘Trail Series’. When I was growing up the word ‘alpenglow’ was like an elixir, something akin to magic. For Mid-western flat-landers who only experienced these places on rare occasions, I vividly remember the few times we finally got up there in the Porcupines or Rockies. My parents knew how to do it, to stay late, wait for sundown when the light came – and later drive down the hill in growing darkness. For Virginia, it was as close to  god as it gets.

I now live where I can see this easily, but not all THAT easily. We still have to work for it with a hike, but that elixir is still there when we arrive, that ‘magic-time’ photographer Galen Rowell always spoke of. So, this little painting is one of my favorite ‘alpineglow’ places, right up the hill from home in the Dungeness watershed of the Olympics. At sunset, it’s a place I’d rather be than just about anywhere.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

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.

New Painting Post

A Flash of Red in the Forest


Sold 

A little flash of red as the downy goes by, carefully checking each bark break for a possible morsel.  It was just outside my studio window, so, I stuck him in a painting.

We have lots of woodpeckers, flickers and sapsuckers here in our forest. I think they all make great subjects to paint, but this little guy, the smallest of them all, provides me with great entertainment as well. Downy Woodpeckers are only a little over six inches long, palm-sized, and seem to prefer mixed forests, meaning hardwood and confers mixed together – which is exactly what we have. In nearby Fort Townsend State Park just a mile away, a beautiful patch of lowland old-growth conifers of huge size, nary a downy is seen.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details if you’re interested.

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.

New Painting Post

Golden Path – a new painting

Sold

Going through some old photos in trip journals, I ran across this photo of a local trail in June. It’s February right now, and this place, not 30 miles from  here up in the Heather Creek area of the upper Dungeness Valley is currently beneath a lot of snow. Still, my heart yearned to be there right now, hiking along and looking at the trail flowers – yes, there IS a flower called a trail flower.

So, with all that in my mind’s eye, this little painting arrived.

And here it is framed.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Short Drop – a new painting

Sorry, it’s sold.

Short Drop, a painting that could be a million places in the Olympic Mountains and North Cascades. If you live in the Northwest, you know this place, and countless others like it. We hike favorite trails in winter, mainly because they’re tourist-free and often find these seasonal streams, but come summer there will be no such thing – many times not even looking like it ever had water flowing there.

But now when I stood there next to it? I could look at it for hours, listening to the Short Drop of falling water.

What do I get out of this? I like studying the situation, how the water leaves the ‘lip’ and begins its fall – that critical moment of drop. In these little waterfall paintings, that very spot almost always become the center-of-interest, the place on the canvas our eyes are drawn too like a magnet. It did for you, I hope, when you first looked at this. The rest of it, the foam, sticks and little leaves are all supporting characters helping that lead actor do its job.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details if you’re interested. These little painting go quickly – just sayin’.

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.

New Painting Post

Beethoven in the Berries – a new painting

Beethoven, because – well, it’s a song sparrow. There are dozens of subspecies of song sparrow, all singing dozens of tunes, but they all include four specific notes that sound like the first four notes of Beethoven’s Symphony #5.  Ta da da – daaaa. And once you relate the bird to the song, you’ll have a friend wherever you travel in America – because they’re everywhere. I know this one well. It likes to sit in a gnarly winterized berry patch at the edge of the forest where it lifts it’s head high and blasts away – sometimes for hours. I’m fond of calling them LBJs, for ‘little brown jobs, and the other day it was right outside my studio window, so, a painting appeared in front of me as if by magic.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

SOLD

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Red-breasted Sapsucker – Hoh Rain Forest

We were hiking the Spruce Trail at the Hoh Rain Forest a couple of months ago, no people – winter had arrived. Then a brilliant flash of  red, a sapsucker landed right in front of us on the trail not ten feet from us, just sat there. After a bit it began jumping around, looking at us as if trying to explain something, but who knows what – we’re not good at sapsucker-lingo. This went on for a good amount of time, and then, as if finally giving up on us, it few off down the trail. We followed, and here it was again, repeating the same routine. I’ve never had the chance to spend as much time with one of these fairly rare birds – it was intriguing.

I’m fairly well convinced that we’re not the only smart things on this planet, if we are at all. There are complex goings-on that, mainly because of our arrogance, we’re missing. I would have loved to have spent time here with this little colorful bird and learned from it, but, alas, we knew not where to begin, so instead I just stupidly sat there with my mouth agape while Nancy clicked away. At least I can paint something in memory of the experience.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

SOLD

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Golden-crowned Kinglet – a new painting

Not once have I ever seen a golden-crowned kinglet on any of our feeders, but they sure are all around us here in our little patch of forest. I had one flitting around the hummingbird feeder today, not five feet from where I sit right now – and so that’s enough of a reason for me to paint it. I think kinglets just focus on eating insects and seed or suet feeders aren’t on their radar.

So, I brought in a little sprig of winter Nootka rose hips for a prop and painted away. This fairly glows with glazing on the background, but the computer screen just can’t handle that, so you’ll have to imagine it.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $189 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

SOLD

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Over the Log – a new painting

This was just a thoughtful moment for me, something like a nice dream one has before awakening – except I wasn’t asleep. Sitting at my easel, mind off thinking beyond the blank board in front of me. One of your bucks meandered past the window. Then in a very clear thought I saw myself sitting beside a nice little mountain stream, messy logs and limbs piled up from past high water, a salmon spawning pool behind it. I remember wondering where the ‘dipper’ was – and then – I just sat down to paint it. No reference photo, no sketch, just my memory of someplace that doesn’t exist. Or, maybe it does.

Five colors later, and here it is. I think the light is nice.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

SOLD

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.