Category Archives: Interpretive Art

Commissioned paintings, Interpretive Art, Nature Art, Uncategorized, Waysides

Hellyer Park wayside panels redo

Yesterday I sent this and it wasn’t pleasant to view on computers. So, I apologize, but here it goes again. You know, old guys, new software. I don’t need to say more, except thanks for sticking with me.

I just finished these last week so wanted to share. A click will enlarge them nicely.

This project was for a native plant garden in Santa Clara County California. It’s a place surrounded by my art in other parks, Mt Diablo, up to Muir Woods, Big Basin Redwoods to Fort Funston and Angel Island, Golden Gate National Recreation Area are some. This park is urban, running along Coyote Creek through San Jose, with a sea of people living along the south shore of San Francisco Bay which includes nearby Silicon Valley and Stanford. Shown here are big background landscape paintings that I was given a fairly free hand it painting – like a gallery show right here in this little park.

Spanish First! So that’s the redundancy of the two sketchbooks in every panel. Took me a bit to accept it, but I’m okay with it now.

These are the very first wayside panels I’ve ever painted with Spanish as the primary language, which says lots about who uses this urban park. I’ve made many of park panels with Spanish as a second language, but never Spanish as the first language – which shows how far this country has changed in the past few decades. I’m proud to be involved in change.

The other interesting direction taken here is that the text isn’t necessarily connected to the art. It’s common to have background art connected to the rest of it, but this is refreshingly ‘wide’ vision of presenting these are more art than school. The sketchbooks are my pencil and watercolor paintings, with canvas acrylics as the backgrounds. All are 42″ wide.

There are elk in this panel, and the title ‘Restore’ suits it. Yes, they’ve introduced Tule elk back into the landscape above the East Bay, and so you can see them here at Hellyer Park up on the ridgetop fairly often.

This last panel is also different, using the entire panel as a thank you to the community’s efforts to repair a landscape much in need of the natural plants that are the foundation of a healthy city.

I want to thank Carolyn at Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation for these, for giving me a free hand at design and art. As I move forward with my art, replacing the almost extinct National Park Service with a path forward in continuing to do what I love – which is to make art that teaches people about their surroundings. It’s clear I didn’t really loose my job as our National Parks closes up shop, and I don’t mean any temporary government shutdown, but these great parks will soon become something else I’m not going to be a part of.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Commissioned paintings, Interpretive Art, Murals, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Uncategorized, Waysides, Wildlife

Garry Oak Forest

I recently made two panels for the Whidbey Island Land Trust and Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society. Here’s the oak panel. This and a panel about nearshore restoration will be installed at the new Keystone Preserve on Whidbey Island very soon. I’m pleased how this all finished up, from concept designs, to making the art and finally making it all work with a text story. Art telling stories, we’ve been talking about that lately.

Garry oaks are the only oak trees in the Pacific Northwest, and they’ve become very rare. This is the same tree as the Oregon white oak, stately and slow-growing forests that were actually cultivated crops for thousands of years by the Indian tribes. These trees provided food and an open forest designed for other important plants such as camas and the other root vegetables for the first people who lived here.

Garry oak forest

Above is my refined sketch for the painting. I was trying to find a way to show the forest and some way to identify the important native plants that are rare as well. And this bluebird, below, gives a scale to the oak leaves and bird that could fit in the palm of my hand. Watercolor and pencil drawing.

garry oak and western bluebird

And below, the second panel for this project, about the restoration of the bluff at the Reserve, eelgrass beds, orcas, salmon and forage fish.

People have been asking, are you still painting for the National Park Service as it spirals down to non-existence? Yes, I currently have two projects and two more awaiting for them – but it’s a sad story that shows my work with them is going to end soon – thanks to the Fascist leadership who is setting up the NPS for total failure. It’s been a wonderful experience for me to spend these past decades painting art for a grateful bunch of people who cared more about their country than making money.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Commissioned paintings, Interpretive Art, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Uncategorized, Waysides, Wildlife

Dungeness River Center – Sequim WA

In 2024, I was commissioned by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in Sequim, Wa to make a series of wayside panels for the Dungeness River Center. This is an interpretive center, exhibits and classrooms, for the wild and free Dungeness, one of the steepest watersheds in the country. The project went on half a year, but I never posted a word about it here. Too many other paintings to talk about, I guess – not to mention finding the time to even sit down to post them.

The Tribe asked me to make these outside panels so when the visitor center is closed, visitors still have a visual learning experience. The panels are around the building, but also along the Olympic Discovery Trail that passes nearby. This trail is also part of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail from Glacier National Park to La Push WA on the Pacific Ocean.

I’m happy with the results. This place is centered around an old railroad bridge (Railroad Bridge Park) and the Tribe bought it, gaining back a bit of their original land they had for thousands of years. In the process, we got to know a rather amazing group of S’Klallam people – and learned a lot doing it. We both felt privileged to be involved.

You’ll see both English and S’Klallam languages on these. The Tribe has programs in the local schools teaching this ancient language, and we tried to blend the languages, especially on the species captions. I think it worked pretty well, although it was a real challenge to figure out a font that has all the characters. Try finding a ADA compliant font with a backwards question mark, or a word that means Belted Kingfisher!

There’s a lot more than just painting that goes into this stuff. I don’t do it all, but from the ground up there’s the concrete pad, an ADA-approved installation of the legs and frame that will last 30 years, the aluminum panel the image is etched on is made only in South Dakota. The entire Adobe Suite of software (usually 4 programs that I use to design it) makes it print-ready. Then a committee has to approve what is written and painted so that it’s an accurate story. The art seems a secondary bit of this, but it takes the most time, and without good art, what is this but a book-on-a-stick!

We tried something new on this panel (above), making the three insets from laser-cut plastic that can be traced with pencil or crayon. School groups can trace the image onto paper to take with them – sort of a hands-on approach to a visual object.

Dusty Humphries, an artisan at the Tribal carving shed (actually a huge new building, not a shed) allowed me in to photograph his work. A truely amazing place.

Lori Grinnell Greninger seemed to be all over this project, giving us help in many ways – and not just modeling her hat – which the building was modeled after.

This last panel has the only image not of my own art or photography. Thanks to John Gussman for the drone image. Also a great thanks to Kathy Steichen for recommending me to the Tribe for this project in the first place. After a lifetime of painting, these new challenges keep me young, and I’ve worked with Kathy on many projects now.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Backpacking, Hiking, Interpretive Art, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Green Rock – oil on canvas

Green Rock is an oil on canvas painting, now available. The canvas is 30″ x 40″ on stretched canvas. It is big enough I thought I’d sell it without the frame, so someone could buy it unstretched, rolled in a tube with the stretcher bars ready to go. We can talk about it.

Below is the painting in a frame, just so you can see what it looks like. I don’t have this frame at the moment, but go ahead and ask.

Where is this place?

The painting is, of course, about salmon (not the green rock). But in these big canvases I find great enjoyment in hiding stuff and telling stories – so how many salmon can YOU find?

I’ve seen many salmon along the Sol Duc River, mostly in Olympic National Park. I even have outdoor exhibit panels there telling the Sol Duc Coho salmon’s story. It’s a special place for both Nancy and me, a place many paintings have been hatched (to use a salmon word). In fact, counting up how many paintings Olympic National Park owns of mine of the Sol Duc Valley: 17! (including one with Nancy in it) Most of them are in a vault at the main visitor center in Port Angeles, so even I can’t see them. All were used for exhibits and reproduced.

If you’d like to find out more about this painting, or if it’s still available, write me at larryeifert@gmail.com.

This is a link to our new Esty store online with some of the available originals.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/EifertGallery

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Hiking, Interpretive Art, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Dipper Flying Home – a new painting

American Dipper Flying Home is an original oil painting – not even varnished yet. It tells the story of a little flying dipper flying into a big waterfall, high in the Olympic Mountains of Washington.

This is an 18″ x 24″ oil on canvas, and it is now available. The frame in the photo comes with it but we have other choices – I just really like how the frame colors fit with this painting. Outside measurements are about 24″ x 30″. We can ship this at cost, double-boxed and ready to hang. Email me at larryeifert@gmail.com if you’re interested in more information. The framed price is $1300.

For those who don’t know about these interesting little birds – dippers, here’s a short essay about them. Also known as Water Ousels (East Coast), they make their living completely dependent on cold, clear mountain streams. They lives are entirely connected to these streams and they don’t migrate – even in winter. They even nest behind waterfalls in mossy wet pockets they build.

Dippers were John Muir’s favorite bird, and maybe mine, too. (their name is because they tend to bob up and down as they stand on rocks) The young birds are wet from birth from the constant cold spray of snowmelt water. The parents teach them the routine by diving in, then ‘walking’ underwater, kicking over stones searching for insects and larva. They use their wings outstretched to hold them down in the current. Dippers never leave their streams, and if a tight river bend means a brief flying detour over land, they, instead, fly the long way around the curve to stay connected to their water-home. It’s the very definition of wilderness I’ve always been drawn to and love to paint.

Below is my photo of Royal Falls, one of the sources of the Dungeness River and a major reference for this painting. Royal Falls is high in Olympic National Park, but only about 25 air-miles from where I write this in my studio. The Dungeness is one of the steepest watersheds in the country, dropping over 7000 feet in just 28 miles.

A dipping American Dipper at Tunnel Creek, Olympic National Forest.

Thanks for reading this week.

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 paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Interpretive Art, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

MacKay Landing – Lopez Island

This is one of three paintings for MacKaye Landing on Lopez Island – in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. It’s another restoration project to enhance altered shorelines and make them healthier for forage fish, salmon’s main food source. I THINK, these three a total of 38 waysides in the San Juan Islands, a place I called a summer home in the 1980’s, so they all have good meaning for me.

They were commissioned by the County, another project like the Orcas Landing panels a few years ago. Katie and Frankie wrangled me into submission (in good ways) to produce these. I’ll show the others in the next post.

This photo below is from the boat ramp area where the panels will go, a peaceful and beautiful place, Canada’s Vancouver Island in the far distance, the Cattle Point Lighthouse just peeking out – where I have two murals (one is the 37′ Indian wall). This is a prime launch for kayakers and fishermen aiming for the archipelago of islands near Cattle Pass. A truly beautiful place.

As I was deciding what this habitat panel would look like, I happened to view a YouTube video of two Canadians doing a kayak trip here, with lots of underwater photography showing the amazing variety of aquatic life along these south-facing rocks, which I love to paint – so it was easy to focus on that. Below is the concept sketch I made just after watching that video.

I anchored here several times in the 1980’s, and as I remember, it was a rolling anchorage with swells coming in at 90 degrees from the boat’s angle – not good for sleeping. And here I am, back with some art that will live here for decades – and be seen long after I’m gone – my favorite public art. For me, it’s a small world in hopefully a long life of art – and I’m just trying to remain relevant while I’m still here.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

Here’s my Facebook fan page. I post lots of other stuff there.

And Instagram is here.

Click here to go to our main website.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Interpretive Art, New Painting Post, Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

Hoypus Landing Wayside Panels

Recently finished some new art for wayside panels at Deception Pass State Park here in Washington State. I’ve lost count of the number of installations I have at this park, a dozen maybe, with a couple even having been washed out to sea in a storm last year.

These three are for a salmon habitat restoration project, which I’ve sure been painting a lot of recently. Washington is betting big on salmon restoration, spending billions (yes) removing road culverts, rock walls on the beaches, fixing it so young salmon and forage fish can have places to live. I seem to be THE guy for interpreting this, and have made dozens in the past few years. Here are three.

So, this place was once a ferry landing. It didn’t last long before the state built the nearby bridge, but in the process, the ferry landing really messed up the beach, making it difficult for fish to feel at home. So, fast forward a century, and Northwest Straits Foundation managed the removal of the mess, putting it back to as natural as possible. It was my job to show this.

This panel went to a similar messed-up beach just to the north of Hoypus Point, same reasons, same fish, but along a neighborhood of houses.

Here’s the result at Hoypus, the ferry landing road is now a trail, the beach put back to gravel and forest duff. The only man-made installation here now is going to be my panels.

Thanks to Lisa Kaufman from Northwest Straits Foundation (on the right of Nancy), and Joy Sullivan at the state park, for allowing me to paint yet more forage fish and my other favorite critters.

Thanks for reading this week.

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 paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Interpretive Art, Nature Art, New Published Story

Caspian Tern – My 48-North Story for August 2015

This month’s sketchbook and published story in 48 North magazine is about Caspian Terns. These few summer weeks are the only times I see these birds while I’m sailing about Port Townsend Bay. Actually, I almost always hear them first, then spot these big guys, and since I try to paint what I see, this was an easy choice for August.

Here’s the story:

This is a sound I hear often on quiet summer sails. Kaaaaarr – like a smoker attempting to clear a raspy throat. I instantly know that sound, and always turn and look up to find the hacker. Then, here it comes, flying fast and high, head down studying the water for a vague shape that indicates dinner. Seeing this, I know two things: it’s summer, and the Caspian Terns are back! I watch as the fast and effortless white bird glides past. Then, fish spotted, it goes into a corkscrew spiral, then into a dive and fully submerges – out the tern comes and quickly takes off with young salmon in mouth (unlike similarly sized gulls that are unable to truly dive).

Most Caspian Terns in Washington nest at the Columbia River estuary, and after family duties are over, both young and parents spread out to spend the summer fishing along the coast and into the Salish Sea. Their numbers are expanding, mainly due to dredged materials that offer new nesting islands, and since terns have a fondness for young salmon – well, you see the problem. Dredge the Columbia River estuary and suddenly you get more birds, the birds eat the salmon, we’re spending millions trying to save salmon. Some Caspian Terns in Washington are medium-distance migrants, wintering on the coast of California, while others travel greater distances, wintering as far south as Colombia and Venezuela. But between now and October when these elegant birds head south, I’ll enjoy them here very much indeed.

Larry Eifert paints and writes about wild places. His work is in many national parks across America – and at larryeifert.com.

Direct link to the article

Larry

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. 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.