Category Archives: New Painting Post

Blog Posts by Larry Eifert

New Painting Post

Ptarmigans Drumming

Can you teach two old dogs some new tricks? Maybe!

Tom Stewart, amazing drum maker who shows with me in Port Townsend’s Gallery Nine approached me recently with a proposal. Would I like to paint one of his elegant drums; a collaborative project. Sounded like fun to me, but what to paint? It took me about 8 seconds to process from drumming to mountains, then to wildlife that drum and finally to the little prairie chicken-like ptarmigans we see and hear booming in western alpine meadows. Actually, there are several species of ptarmigans and they all do more or less the same “drumming” and dancing to call attention to themselves. We’ve almost fell over one once in the alpine heather on Mount Rainier.

So, off I went without any sketches or plans, just an idea of mountains and ptarmigans. They change color with the seasons and are pure white in winter – and they’re the only bird that remains in the alpine throughout winter. But that’s not all: then they turn white and brown in spring and fall (like spring snow patches), and look almost brown in summer. In winter, feet are covered with feathers, as well as some of the beak – so air can be warmed as it’s breathed. Quite a bird!

The drum? Tom plays it far better than I do, and there was a point I could almost think I was in an alpine meadow. It’s 24 inches tall, 12 inch diameter head, goat hide skin. The drum weighs 9.5 pounds and the drum shell is made from five layers of laminated kiln dried Douglas-fir.

The out side surface was wrapped with fiber glass mesh and stuccoed with two coats of wood filler. The filler was sanded smooth making an ideal surface to paint on. The tuning hardware is hand-formed by Tom with mild steel and electro-plated with brass.

We’re going to display this wonder at Gallery Nine in Port  Townsend at Gallery Walk, April 7th. Come in and play it too.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Sketchbook of the White Mountains

Click each image to enlarge – there are nice textures here and there.

This week I painted more art for Schulman Grove’s new visitor center in the White Mountains of California. This group is a series of seven sketchbook pages for exhibit panels below my three murals. These three need to be cleaned up a bit, so you’ll see some ragged look and blocky edges here and there from all the Photoshop layers. It’s a work in progress, but this way you can see assembly process.

I hope not, but I may need to move some of the sketches around or change the wording, so I thought it best to create EACH drawing seperately and even the color is seperately layered so it can be changed. Each text passage is put in with Photoshop too, so it can be edited if necessary. I first did the pencil sketch, then put tracing paper over it and painted the color layer. Both were scanned, pieced together and put on a photo image of one of my blank sketchbooks. I think the results look pretty good, like they’re old field sketches drawn on location a century ago. I was shooting for those old botanical illustrations on faded yellow paper, and I think I came close. Once I get approval from the Forest Service, I can clean up the rough edges. The reason I didn’t hand letter the captions is that all this has to be ADA compliant, so the characters have to be an approved font. Ah, the world of public art these days is pretty complex!

Computers can be maddening, but then again they can help produce wonderful results. On the other hand, if I didn’t have a few drawing skills in the first place, none of this would have happened at all, so don’t send me emails about computers replacing artists. They’re just tools, like paint brushes or pencils.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. She has some new shots of Sequi, the new sea otter she’s been photographing.

New Painting Post

Another Bristlecone Pine Painting

A few weeks ago I posted my three large murals just completed for the new Schulman Grove Visitor Center near Bishop, CA. Now I’m working on some smaller art for interpretive panels for the rest of the building, and this one features a big ol’ gnarly ancient bristlecone tree in pen and ink and acrylic wash. Below is the preliminary sketch so you can see the progression from pencil to finished painting. It’s pretty close!

There are a lot of other people involved in this project besides me, but I seem to rarely express thanks to these folks for the help I get and joy I experience in doing my work. I’m sure not saying I’m any better than anyone else here, just that it takes a bunch of people to make a visitor center. There’s Rosie, the contractor and designer from Georgia, Frank the writer from Marin County, CA, John L and Sheryl H from the Forest Service, as well as Scott and John from the team Rosie’s assembled to get all this accomplished. We’re a bunch of people that are all doing specific jobs to create a beautiful installation on a remote mountaintop in the Great Basin – and I get to do the art. What a deal!

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Glacier Bay National Park aquatic painting

Images should enlarge if you click on it.

Here is the second painting for Glacier Bay National Park. Two weeks ago I posted the first one showing an above the bay – below the bay painting of the same ecosystem. Both paintings will be made into outdoor panels and installed on the dock at Bartlett Cover in the Park.

Both of these have been fun and interesting for me, because there are great similarities as well as great differences between Glacier Bay’s aquatic landscape and ours right here in Port Townsend a thousand miles to the south. Some of the critters on these pilings are much bigger, some are smaller, and some are different colors and shapes. It takes some close study to figure it out, learning about one species at a time.

And here’s the preliminary sketch. I get a lot of mail about seeing the evolution of these paintings from concept to sketch to final painting. This one started out with a dock and gull, railing and all sorts of stuff hanging underneath. They even found the blueprints for the dock so I could see what it looks like underneath, but in the end all that was nixed for a cleaner design. What a difference, don’t you think?

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. She now has more sea otter pup images posted.

New Painting Post

Yellow Rowboat

Click on the painting and it should enlarge in your browser.

A classic double-seat rowboat with a wineglass stern of the Whitehall design, this is one of many similar boats at Lake Union’s Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle. I just love the two blue paint swipes on the oars – the only paint anywhere on the boat, and masked off to hit the water at just the right angle when someone is rowing with them.

For me, it’s a painterly study of reflections and bounced light, the subtle way varnished wood both brightens wood color, and reflects the glow of sky light. If you know me, you understand I think of these historic craft as sculpture, the perfect union of form and function. There’s nothing frilly on this boat at all, and every piece of wood is there for a purpose that’s been worked out through trial-and-error. Yet there isn’t a single thing that was put on to make it more beautiful for the sake of beauty. It doesn’t need it. Even the cotton (not synthetic) string holding the asymmetrical oarlocks to the boat has a graceful arch. Some say art should be thought-provoking and culturally relevant of today’s society. I’d say this is just that, showing how far we’ve fallen from the desire to create functional beauty – but don’t get me started about today’s constant mantra of cheaper-is-better.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on board, 14″ x 20″. The custom gold frame with linen liner has a second inside gold edging that measures at 18″ x 24″ on the outside.
Including the gold frame as you see it here, Yellow Rowboats is offered for $690. 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

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. Her sea otters are hot. She had a feature color front page story and inside as well this week in the Olympic Peninsula’s Peninsula Daily News.

New Painting Post

Wilderness Art for a Wilderness Park

90% of the people who visit Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park come on a cruise ship, and most never get off their boat. But those few that do come ashore get to experience a fantastic ecosystem so complex as to boggle a nature-painter’s mind. This painting and exhibit will get front-row seating in Bartlett Cove, the main staging area for people who have the mind and spirit to personally experience this pristine place – and it gives me a permanent little art gallery on the dock! How cool is that?

I just finished this painting two days ago – so it’s still out for approval. This is the first of two images I’ve been working on for Glacier Bay. They both show the critters living between one of the biggest tidal ranges on the planet. Tides here can swing as much as 25 FEET in one cycle, and all that rushing water makes for a pretty rich table, or, as the caption says: “When the tide is out, the table is set”.

I’ve always loved working with the National Park Service. Unlike many, these folks are not in it for the money – but for the good of nature and society, and I just don’t see much of that anymore. As an example of the lengths they go to so I get the best information for a painting, they sent me a little video link a couple of weeks ago. Photographed in a BLIZZARD and with the staff on skis, it showed where this installation will go! Don’t tell me these folks don’t have their hearts in the right place.

Thanks for reading this week. The second painting will be ready soon.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. Sea Otters, oh my.

New Painting Post

Low Tide

Low Tide Clouds

After all the past big mural posts, this week it’s a simple painting. I love constructing small stories into paintings, especially these little calm inlets of saltwater around the Northwest. If you read this blog, you’ll see these fairly often. Not much tells a story here except the reflections of the hillside conifers and the high bank in sunlight, yet there’s a lot crammed into this, but, then again, not really. Northwest glacial rubble, firs and hemlock on the shore, partly cloudy, shallow clouds with blue sky breaking through. Minus tide. Logs on the far beach, not much kelp on the rocks so it must be winter. That’s it – a story painted into a 9″ x 12″ rectangle.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″.
A custom wood frame makes it a total of $330 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.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

A New Life for Lahonton Wetlands

My first Nature Conservancy commission was this mural of the marshes east of Reno, Nevada. The original painting hangs in their offices in Reno, along with about 2.000 posters floating around the West. Now, almost 20 years later, another image will be installed in the new BLM California Trail Interpretive Center, eight miles west of Elko, Nevada. I just sent the final scan and it’ll be 17 feet wide by 10 feet high, proving that art never dies, it just gets reprinted.

Back when this was painted, there weren’t digital scanners like we have today. I remember I had it photographed in Sacramento and found the 8″ x 10″ film postive transparency still there in our lock box on Kodak film that’s not even made today. It was a color-perfect shot and scanned up 2500% just beautifully. How big was that file for a 17′-wide image? The Photoshop layers file was 2.4 gigabits, and I admit my computer took some time to process it. Smokin’.

It was almost 20 years ago when Nancy and I were doing field research for this painting in the dry lakebeds and marshes around Fallon, Nevada. It was the only time either of us have been on an airboat – basically an airplane engine and prop on the back of a big rowboat. What a thrill it was to just glide over these bull rushes and “fly” around miles of marshes. We eventually ended up at a beach just like this one where the US Fish and Wildlife Service guides showed us fresh water clams, reminders of the ancient Paleo landscape when these dwindling lakes were giants from Ice Age runoff.

I have a new show at Gallery Nine in Port Townsend this month. Here’s press on it from the Peninsula Daily News, and here’s the Gallery Nine website with more information. Come on down if you’re here.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Low Water at Point Wilson

Low-Water-at-Point-Wilson

This is, I think, one of the most intriguing places here in our little town of Port Townsend, and I’ve painted it often. Every container ship, submarine, aircraft carrier, sailboat or killer whale going into Puget Sound has to go right by here, and at low tide it’s a pretty dramatic and busy place. On a recent walk, we were here on a minus tide, just before the big rush of water began that would completely submerge this spot, so I spent a few minutes of peace and quite, unusual without waves or noise -just a perfect moment to compose a painting.

I get LOTS of comments on this blog about my painting process. Do I paint on location (well, certainly not when it’s 45 degrees), do I work from a photo (it’s just a basic starting point, like a sketch where I can remember details)? So here’s the reference photo I took with my phone-camera. An interesting transformation from photo to painting, don’t you think? Where’d the kelp go? Well, after working with it on the sketch, I realized kelp was completely unnecessary and made the rocks look like mush. Better to focus on the luminousity of the water instead. I say, learn to spot a locked door and climb in a window instead!

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on hardboard, 22″ x 28″ and $700 unframed.
We have some good frames for this one, but it’s a big enough painting that we’ll figure that out when you buy it. It’s going into a show at Gallery Nine, so if you’d like it, better jump quickly. Not that I’m bragging, but the last one went in 20 minutes and there were five who wanted it. This is the original painting, NOT a print and it’s being sold without the gallery commission. There will soon be prints of this on the website for our normal prices – here’s an example of another one).
Email us for details if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. She’s just posted a blog about the new sea otter pup at the Seattle Aquarium. Amazing.

New Painting Post

A Brown Pelican – Really?

Brown pelican in the Boat Haven!

Thanks to DDT, by 1970 the California brown pelican was almost gone from the West Coast of the United States. Even today, these great fishermen with a wingspan of 6.5 feet only nest on the Channel Islands off Los Angeles. Sometimes, but not often, a few migrate northward during the late summer.

So, imagine my amazement when Nancy spotted one here in Port Townsend in the middle of January – and while it was snowing to boot. There he was, down in the marina right under the fish boat dock awaiting the next toss-out of not-so-good fish. And he probably wasn’t cold either, as the water this time of year is a full 20 degrees warmer than the air.

So, like the journalist that I am, here’s a little painting of Port Townsend’s wintering brown pelican. My hat’s off to him! And my hat’s off to Rachel Carson, an old family friend who stood up to the chemical industry over 50 years ago so this bird could eventually make its way to Port  Townsend in January, 2012.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on paper, 7″ x 10″ and $85 unframed.

A nice custom frame with a double mat and glass makes it a total of $110 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.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.