All posts by Wilderness Walker

Dipper Dipping

For local readers – This weekend we’ll be exhibiting at the Fort Worden Wildlife and Nature Exposition in Port Townsend. Hope you see you there.

This little dipper (or water ousel, as my naturalist-mom called it a generation ago) sat here for quite awhile. Dippers dip – up and down, up and down, almost constantly as if doing a little stationary dance, and this one did just that. It’s mate was close by, and as the dipping went on, the little bird made pleasant and soft chattering calls. Then it left my view by simply launching itself over the log and into the water – sinking out of sight. I thought this was a very ‘dipper like’ scene, so here’s my effort to hold on to that memory. The way the water curls over the partially submerged log made for interesting lighting changes.

Dippers are pretty crazy birds. They live year-round, thought the worst winter storms, around clean and cold high mountain streams, nesting behind waterfalls and always sticking closely to their local stream. Summer or winter, these robin-sized birds make their living by jumping into these chilly, sometimes icy, fast-moving crystal-clear waters to walk along the bottom, kicking over stream stones to find aquatic insects. I’ve heard they even hold their wings outstretched to pin them down in the current – which means they are even more exposed to frigid waters. This river (in September) was probably 50 degrees F, having just been released from a glacier up the hill, and it would be the warmest it would ever experience – so you get my drift about ‘crazy’ birds. But then they have feathers, and we don’t, so comparisons are probably idiotic.

This is an ORIGINAL painting in acrylic on stretched linen canvas. It’s 9″ x 12″ and offered for sale for $140, or $180 framed as you see it. Priority mail shipping will add a bit more, as well as sales tax if you’re in the state of Washington. Email us if you’re interested.
Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints and other stuff at larryeifert.com.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing. She’s currently got a show in Port Townsend at Gallery Nine.

Or, you can always email us to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Elwha River at the old Humes Ranch

I’ve painted two large murals of the Elwha River for Olympic National Park, and so in the interest of science, art and fun, of course we had to hike up the river to check it out. We’ve backpacked up this valley several times in the last two seasons. The Humes Ranch area is only a few miles from the trailhead, but its scenic beauty would be worth miles more. As someone said, this is a big messy river, with snags and piles of old-growth trees strewn along its shores. We’ve camped here several times, right on the grassy knoll above the rocks here, taking in the vastness of this place as the sun sets behind the peaks. This is what Western National Parks are all about, experiencing wildness that used to be taken for granted, but isn’t any more.

Oh, and Humes Ranch used to be here prior to the park’s creation. In fact, the oldest building in the park, the old ranch house, was just restored just up the slope. The only livestock left today are the bears, deer and elk.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

To check availability of the other small originals I’ve blogged about the past few weeks, check the blog here.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Artist’s Sketch – Bristlecone Pine mural sketch #2

Ancient Bristlecone Pines
This is straight from the artist’s studio.
You’re receiving this weekly email blog because a friend or associate thought you’d like these occasional postings. This is from Larry Eifert, long-time artist and writer, the guy who has more art in America’s National Parks than any other. These postings show some of the personal inner workings of an artist creating everything from large wall murals to smaller easel canvases. All are about America’s Nature. To not receive these emails any more, simply hit reply and write “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

Bristlecone-sketch

If you click on the image, it should enlarge. If not, go to the blog here.

And so: For years, I’ve wanted to paint the ancient bristlecones of the high and dry western desert mountains. Thought I had it at Wheeler Peak, Great Basin National Park (where I experienced as close to a spiritual moment as I’ve ever had), then later at Utah’s Bryce Canyon, but budget problems or scheduling always got in the way. Now, thanks to a nut (and NOT a pine nut) burning down the visitor center in the Shulman Grove of California’s White Mountains just east of the High Sierra, and the generosity of the Crater Lake Institute that is spearheading a high-elevation pine interpretive program, I’m having a go at the most iconic and picturesque grove of them all.

Here’s an updated version of the initial sketch that has changes from comments from all the bristlecone-pros.

This image shows two ancient trees, both possibly 4500 years of age and living at 10,000 feet of elevation in a super-dry limestone mountain landscape. The bits of dead trees strewn around the ground could be thousands of years older still. Birds and animals shown all live here, at least during the warmer months, bringing the only other sounds to this stark and beautiful landscape besides the singing winds through branches and past needles. It’s quite a place.

As I did with the similar whitebark pine painting last year, I’ll send an update on the progress of this one next week. This is going to be fun.

Thanks for reading. If you’re received this in error, we apologize.
Larry

We have posters and jigsaw puzzles of the last “High-Five” painting (whitebark pine = five-needled high-mountain pine).
Posters are here.
Jigsaw Puzzles are here:

The main website at LarryEifert.com is here.
Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

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Bagley Creek Meadows


Bagley Creek is what you’d call the perfect “river runs through it” stream. It meanders out of a high alpine lake and into this narrow glaciated valley past basaltic cliffs and meadows. Our trail was along the west bank – the morning sun casting long shadows on the far cliffs. Nanc and I could have sat in these meadows for hours, listening to the bumblebees making slow passes on September pearly everlastings and watching a northern harrier canvas the grass for mice. On the slopes above these meadows, blueberries were everywhere, and with the warming sun each one turned into a little berry tart.

There’s a favorite essay of mine by Virginia Eifert (yah, mom) who wrote “I stand by the river and I know that it has been here yesterday and will be here tomorrow and that therefore, since I am part of its pattern today, I also belong to all its yesterdays and will be part of all its tomorrows. This is a kind of earthly immortality, a kinship with rivers and hills and rocks, with all things and all creatures that have ever lived or ever will live or have their being on the earth. It is my assurance of an orderly continuity in the great design of the universe.”

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed. If you’d like to add the gold frame, that makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Sonja (who bought one of these small paintings) says I need to say this: This is an original painting, NOT a print. Email us for details. To check availability of the other small originals I’ve blogged about the past few weeks, check the blog here.

SOLD

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Herring Balls

48 N September 09

Cover art and story – 48 North Magazine, September 2009. (48 North is the premier sailing magazine for the Pacific Northwest) This month features my painting of our little sloop, Sea Witch, sailing by downtown Port Townsend. They also featured my short story about herring balls.
Sorry if this is a long entry, but the story’s a good one and I’ve shortened it abit.

Sea-Witch-Herring-Ball
Fish Balls
by Larry Eifert

An amazingly nice afternoon! Get the sail covers off Sea Witch. Back her out. Head down the channel and out into Port Townsend Bay. Then, get the sails up, sheet’r home. And away we went to the north out into Admiralty Inlet, watching the freighters and navy ships tooing and frowing. A warm northwesterly wind was gently spilling out from the hills of Port Townsend and into the bay. It was tee-shit weather.

We hadn’t made it to the Mid Channel Bank when ahead we could see a great mass of moving birds. Actually, there were several masses of birds, all wheeling and spinning, diving and making a ruckus. “Herring balls” we both said at the same time as we nodded in unison. The birds were going crazy. About fifty glaucous-winged gulls were in each group, and more flying in as fast as they could from other areas nearby. Cormorants, rhino auklets, a few pigeon guillemots and even a bunch of mergansers were all bobbing about, diving, grabbing at others nearby and generally making a “happening” as I use to say 40 years ago. The gulls couldn’t dive very deeply, being very buoyant-birds, so they just gave it their best, plunging from about five feet into the water and grabbing at nothing. “Mine, mine, mine, mine!” they all yelled continuously. It was a riot, and as we approached, none of the birds seemed to care we were there. Then a slow, huge and powerful swirl of water nearby showed something else was going on below the surface. Unseen until now, a sea lion was there as well, circling up from below to concentrate the herring ball close to the surface. A 650 lb, 8 foot-long sea lion can make an impression on everyone, including tiny fish. It was intense – and this was just one of about six riots of wildlife within our view.
Pacific-Herring
Well, I knew what was going on, but maybe you don’t, so here’s what these big events were all about.

Pacific herring are little fish, and if you’re a little fish, you can gain odds for prolonging your life if you stick together. A bunch of little fish can become a very big fishy thing if you hang out together – think teenagers hanging out! One teenager – no big deal, but a half a million of them and you get Woodstock. That’s the herring teenager’s idea too, but there are lots of bigger critters out there trying to dine on them. There’s not a moment’s peace. And while sticking together can increase your odds of individual survival, it also announces to everyone where you’re hanging out.

Most Puget Sound herring spawn from late January to early April, depositing transparent sticky eggs on eelgrass and marine algae in shallow water, mostly in quiet bays and estuaries. Each female deposits between 20,000 and 40,000 eggs a year, and it’s these sheer numbers that insure the herring’s survival. These sticky eggs cling to eelgrass stems, and, after about 14 days, hatch into small transparent larvae about a half-inch long. The little critters are at the mercy of currents as they drift about, but the larvae that survive grow until after 3 months when they are about 1½” long, when they metamorphose into adult fish, eventually growing to become six to nine inches long. Think sardines in that square little can, but bigger. Most of us know Pacific herring from bait shop freezers, where we see them lined up in blue Styrofoam trays.

On the second or third year, herring normally return to their original spawning grounds. Unlike salmon, spawners don’t normally die but continue to spawn in successive years, although most don’t make it past five years of age. A few may live to the ripe old age of fifteen. However, it’s been estimated that, for every 10,000 herring eggs, ONE adult will live long enough to return to spawn, such is the level of predation on these little fish. In Puget Sound, we, as the dominate prey species, have decided that spawning herring make up 18 different “management stocks” (because we, as herders of the world’s critters need to count all this stuff so we know how much to “take”). In the past, herring have been caught for food, then caught and ground up for oil and pet food. Some of the eggs are used (in Canada) as high-end gourmet food for Asian markets. The reality of it is that the many seabirds, marine mammals and larger fish species have a greater need and eat these important little fish to help them survive. Fewer orcas these days? Well, it might be that a bunch of us dropped our anchors in those wonderfully quiet back bays where eel grass beds live, our 45lb Danforths tearing up the bay’s bottom and depriving herring of good quality habitat for them to lay their eggs. Or, more likely, shoreline trophy home owners have altered the spawning grounds off their front yards by adding elaborate stone walls and lawns that use chemicals that then run off into the nearby waters – killing the ecosystem they spent zillions of dollars to live next to. Fewer herring means less food for salmon, an important food for orcas. Fewer herring also means less food for orcas, too, which catch them the same way seals do. In Puget Sound, 60-70% of the herring are eaten by larger critters each year, and the numbers of herring is decreasing each year. Get the picture?

We watched the herring action for awhile longer as we sailed past, then headed over to the next ball of birds and fish. Out of that cloud of wheeling and screaming gulls, a lone rhinoceros auklet flew by at top speed holding a 3” flapping herring in its bill. You could almost imagine the bird’s thoughts of “I got mine, now I’m getting out of this party as fast as my little black wings can carry me.”
Rhino-Auklet
Well, so what? So what’s the big deal with watching a bunch of birds? To me, it’s a matter of the quality of life. Sure it was a pleasant day for a sail. The scenery was beautiful, the company wonderful, the experience memorable – but experiencing the herring balls made it much more. We had watched nature at a very close range, beyond the beach and parking lots, beyond the signs that say: Wildlife Viewing Area. Out here on the waters of Puget Sound, a daysail can turn into a real experience if you just look for it. Many sailors might have just sailed by, maybe only worried their sails might get a dab of bird doo on them. Some wouldn’t have even noticed, for it seems that many of us have diminished attentions these days to the natural world around us. We spend most of our lives chained indoors, watching nature on monitors or TVs, watching movies about penguin marches or watching others do what we once took for granted we’d do ourselves which is to seek outdoor experiences. Well, I’m telling you those experiences are still there, still waiting for us, and still exciting to see when we let them into our lives. I’d like to think that, with a good-old recession now altering our grandiose lifestyles a bit, we may begin to think about returning to the old ways of enjoying ourselves. Get outside, get in a boat, get your eyes open again and see a few things. You might find you like yourself more for these experiences.

If you want more of this stuff, you can click here to go to our index page of more published stories.

Check out 48-North magazine completely online.

Link here to the same story on our website, larryeifert.com.

If you’d like to see why I write about this ol’ boat of ours, here’s more about Sea Witch.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

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Black-tailed Deer – Port Townsend Trail

Eifert_Deer_Larry_Scott

Just west of our marina and downtown Port Townsend, an old railroad grade goes along the bay before turning inland. This is now a public trail, part of the great Northwest Trail that goes from Cape Avala, west of here, all the way to Glacier National Park in Montana – three states and 1200 miles away. And while it’s a hiking trail like the John Muir, Pacific Crest or Appalachian Trails, here you have to climb on our ferry for a few miles to keep going east.

Coming into town, there’s one place under the bluffs where, late in the afternoon, black-tailed deer like to congregate. You eyes focus on the marvelous views ahead and they often miss the fact you’re being watched yourself – but Port Townsend deer are pretty tame, having been raised from birth on the garden roses, apples and all manor of tasty plants carefully bought and planted by the locals.

This is a larger painting today. This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on archival board, 14″ x 10″ and $650 unframed. If you’d just like the painting framed, that makes it a total of $690 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is an ORIGINAL painting, NOT a print. Email us for details.

To check the availability of the other originals I’ve blogged about the past few weeks, check the blog here and go down the listings.
Thanks for reading this week.
Larry EifertClick here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints and other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

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Admiralty Head Lighthouse


It’s a traditional landscape this week!

The other day, while we were waiting for the Port Townsend – Keystone ferry on Whitbey Island, we walked over to take a few snaps of the nearby old Fort Casey batteries and this great old lighthouse. The lighthouse actually predates the surrounding fort by decades, having initially been built in 1861. It has to be one of most interesting lights on the West Coast with a sort-of Spanish look to it (although it was designed by a German). I really should have painted it looking seaward, because across the channel the Olympics, Point Wilson Light and Port Townsend create a vast and beautiful panorama, but I’ll leave that for another painting. Maybe a bigger canvas!

I’ve also been working on some larger “park” murals recently but have really enjoyed these smaller efforts on canvas. I’ll keep at it for awhile – it seems you all like them too.
This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 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.

To check availability of the other small originals I’ve blogged about the past few weeks, check the blog here.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Our Road

SOLD

Clicking the image should enlarge it for better viewing. If not, go to the blog here.

This week, it’s sort of a Hudson River School painting. Or it could be the 17th-century painter, Paul Rubens, didn’t paint landscapes as much as he painted people, but the colors and mood here are the same (at least that’s the way I see it). I learned early-on that painting dark colors and textural shadows around the edges helps brings the viewer’s eyes quickly to the center focal point – and away from the painting’s edges (where they just might wander off someplace else). I like all these textural effects, slamming wet and goopy paper towels, dry brushes and even the back of my hand into the canvas. The back of my hand: that part of my body has rarely been completely clean of paint now for decades.

“Our Road” is just that, it’s our street right in front of our studio. There are only three addresses on the entire stretch plus another that’s not legal, and it deadends into a saltwater swamp where there are more salmon then people. Hilton Avenue sounds pretty ritzy, but, hah, it’s just a little dirt lane the county sometimes thinks to grade (or not).

This painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.
Like last time, this one isn’t going on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

We’ll be gone to the mountains until Friday evening, but I promise to contact everyone who wants this in the order we received them.
Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Easy Trail

Easy-Trail-framed

SOLD

Level, easy and hopefully endless. Now, that’s my idea of a trail. It meandered through ferns for awhile, then came out into this glade filled with false lily-of-the-valley and scattered trillium. All these flowers had long faded, but no matter, it was just a nice place to be. Filtered sunlight came through the upper canopy, casting strong shadows behind the tree trunks. And, as usual for me, I thought this seemed like a good place for a painting.

So here it is – the Easy Trail. It’s always my hope that paintings, like photography, can bring something fresh to eyes that will never see it. It’s my joy to say that, indeed, I saw, and now you have too.

This original painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed. This is an original, not a print.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.

This one, like several others this month, won’t be listed on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

 

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Log Jam

If you click on the image, it should enlarge for a better view.

Someone called me to ask if these small paintings were actually prints. Nope, these are originals. We might make a few prints later, but these on the blog are the real-deal. I’ve always enjoyed doing these smaller studies and have painted thousands of them through the years.

This huge pile of cedar and hemlock trees, a log jam, was across the Nooksack River from a campground we stayed in. Placid water was there at the time, but I’ll bet the river that created this wood pile was something else again when the Nooksack built it. Imagine the power it took to pile these huge trees up against the shore. These log jams are now understood to be critical to healthy fish habitat in mountain rivers, and in some restoration projects, log jams are actually artificially created. On their upstream migrations to spawn, adult salmon rest under these branches and trunks, safe from predators. Young salmon and trout safely hang out here while they’re growing up and kingfishers sit atop the branches waiting for a smallish morsel to swim by.

As a painter, my eye was attracted to the color values and shadows. I liked the way the sun lit up the riverbed gravel with warm yellows and browns – and the way the cool blue foreground shadows colored the same gravel completely differently. Finally, I added the background log jam and standing conifers as the focal point shining brightly in full sun. So even if they’re a bunch of dead trees, this makes for a pleasing and complex composition, don’t you think?

This painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.

This one, like several others this month, won’t be listed on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.