Category Archives: New Painting Post

Blog Posts by Larry Eifert

New Painting Post

Migrating Dunlin – Taking a Break

 

 

We were out on one of the West End Olympic beaches the other day – Beach #2 maybe, and up in the wrack I spotted this little dunlin. It seemed okay, probably just taking a well-deserved rest. What was unusual for us was that it was in the finest breeding form, a suit of clothes we don’t normally get to see over on Puget Sound around Port Townsend – over there we see Fall southbound birds in dull-gray clothes. I’m guessing that it was about half way on the north-bound migratory journey from Mexico to the North Slope of Alaska. There were a couple other dunlin also on the beach, so we assumed this one was with that bunch, and the fact it wasn’t alone felt good to us.

I was struck by the enormity of the scene. Visualize giant and endless sets of waves on a rugged shoreline, piles of drift trees all the way up into the forest where winter storms had easily tossed them, millions upon millions of polished stones and bits of driftwood stretching into the distance in both directions – and this tiny 2-ounce hemispheric traveller that weighs the same as two first class letters was on its way from Mexico to the Arctic. Worthy of a painting? I thought so?

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $125 unframed.
We have nice custom wood frames for $25 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.

Clickhere to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. She has some current posts of the same trip (ours, not the dunlin’s).

New Painting Post

Summer Getaway cover

I don’t post much of this publicity stuff, but this was a nice bit of press recently (and we just walked in the door from five days in San Diego). This is the cover for the Olympic Peninsula tourist magazine, the Getaway, probably the one most visitors gravitate to. I thought the Port Townsend Leader newspaper did a nice job of incorporating the title into the painting. It’s cropped pretty severely but still works fairly well.

That’s Port Townsend’s Fort Worden State Park, a popular place with 2+ miles of beaches, a college, poetry press, marine science center, woodworking school, 1200-set concert pavilion where there are music and writer weeklong summer workshops and over about 500 rooms and campsites. It’s one of the best things about this little town. The painting location is on the road going up the hill to the old gun emplacements, giant concrete structures that look like a deserted futuristic city from Blade Runner – and in the far left background is Mount Rainier – at exactly 100 miles away, it still looks that tall, I’m not kidding.

We have prints of this image (not cropped) that now seem popular since it’s appearance on the Getaway. Here’s the link.
OR 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. She has some very tasty posts on her blog.

New Painting Post

Barnes Creek Trail – an Ageless Moment

Another sweet old-growth trail painting today. How many of these trails have I been on? I think it’s some genetic throwback to a distant past that compels me to hike just one more of these trails, and then paint the darned thing later (it’s two for one – first the trail experience and then reliving that pleasure in a painting). This one starts on Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park, goes gently upslope following the creek past Merrymere Falls (pretty cool in itself) and onto the flanks of Mount Storm King. About two miles out, the trail goes over a little hump past some pretty impressive trees – which is where the inspiration for this painting occurred. Don’t go up there looking for it – these things are never even close to what they actually look like. There I was, waiting for Nancy to photograph some spring flowers – knees in the dirt, head in the ferns as usual. And while I stood there soaking in the forest, I just fell in love with the place – the gentle flow of the trail, the glow of light on a few leaves, the agelessness of it all.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $320 unframed.
A custom wood frame is about $25 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

Demise of a Favorite Bridge

Bark Shanty Bridge – Big Quilcene River: If you’ve been reading these posts for a few years, you might recognize this painting. Recently we hiked the same trail under those same giant trees, the Lower Big Quil a few miles south of us. At just under the three mile mark, first one beautiful old bridge, then Bark Shanty Flat with giant cedars and Doug-firs, and around the bend to a very disheartening sight. Bark Shanty Bridge has been hit by not one, but two giant trees, and the far end is crushed to pieces. It’s cleared away and open to hikers only, but the deed is done and the bridge will soon be history. The Forest Service says it’s letting a contract this summer for a replacement, and if the new bridge on the nearby Dungeness Trail is any example, they’ll do a good job of carefully replacing it with another hand-carved log span. BUT, OUR bridge is soon to be gone – the one I used as the model for this painting. It had real character – a fish net nailed across the tread to improve traction, mossy handrails, notched logs for the cross beams. The Forest Service isn’t sure how old it is, but I’m guessing 1950’s at least – probably not WPA-age because wood just doesn’t last all that long up in those wet forests. As my painterly-life has gone on, this has happened more times than I can count, and I’m beginning to think it’s bad luck – or good luck, maybe, to recognize something beautiful and interesting – and instill some sort of painterly immortality upon it before it’s gone.

The Bark Shanty Bridge the other day. You can see where the trees hit it on the far side, and the splintered spire of the second tree’s base. Evidently during a winter’s high water, the upper sections of both trees then washed back downstream and lodged under the bridge.

We still have prints available of this painting. Here they are on the main website.
Or, you can 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. I think she’s cooking up a blog post of this too.

New Painting Post

The Marmots of Hurricane Hill

A local project this week. Olympic National Park is just to the southwest of us, we see the snow shining on the peaks just a few miles away. The Olympic Peninsula is a biological island, with water on three sides and lowland on the fourth, so Olympic’s alpine is really isolated from the rest of the continent. Because of this, there are at least twenty-three plants and animals that are only found here – although a couple are on Vancouver Island peaks too. Take a walk in the alpine and you’ll see nature you can’t see anywhere else. One of these is the Olympic marmot, a big meadow-living woodchuck that spends its summers eating sedges and grasses as it prepares for the next 8 months of underground sleeping. We often see these guys hanging out on their den “front porches”, watching for preditors. But recently, their meadows have been changing – and not for the better. One might say the neighborhood has been going to the dogs (coyotes).

So this bit of art will alert visitors as they climb the Hurricane Hill trail to watch for a rare critter that is in trouble. Climate Change? Well, the Park might not say this, but I see thousands of brand new little confers invading the upper meadows, where trees haven’t been before. It’s like winters aren’t as harsh, the growing season just a bit longer. More trees equal better cover for lowland coyotes to sneak through as they go after the marmots. And the coyotes are here since the wolves have been exterminated!

For me, it’s another chance to learn more about nature – and figure out how to illustrate it so you can 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

North Fork Sol Duc River – Golden Light

(this should enlarge if you click on it)
Anyone who has followed these posts will recognize the river’s name, because I’ve painted images here before. And you may know the name, but I’ll bet few of you have actually hiked beside it or stuck your toes in it – but you should. The Sol Duc is one of those glorious Olympic rivers and runs unblocked for about 75 miles, from the alpine to where it joins the Quillayute just short of the sea. The North Fork is roadless and entirely within Olympic National Park, and has only a trail beside it – and it’s sweet and pure magic to meander among these huge trees and sculptured bedrock. It’s not one of those raging torrents like the Elwha or Hoh with gigantic piles of messy torn out trees blocking every bend, but a very refined and elegant bit of water you just don’t want to leave at the end of a hike. The catch? There’s a half-mile climb between your car and the first ford – a little hump that weeds out the weak. I think there used to be a log bridge, but that’s long gone and in my mind it’s a good thing. Keeps the trail isolated enough so you’ll have it to yourself. We just slip on river sandals and in a minute we were on the trail to paradise, listening to the sounds of falling water and breeze high in the canopy.

This painting is a remembrance of a fine day of hiking. It was time to leave, but there was this one final moment when the sun highlighted the last bend just before the ford. It was a moment to dream about.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 16″ x 20″ and $790 unframed.
I have some nice wood or gold frames for another $30 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

Low Tide – Cockle

A second shell on the same beach as the post a couple of weeks ago. Okay, I’m hooked on the interesting patterns in the mud and had to do another one – especially with these huge tides we’ve been seeing.

All was gray, green and brown, gray and brown – with the exception of the tiny reddish membranes on the cockle. That subtle red even reflected in the water below the shell. These recent big tides forced us take an afternoon and hike out Dungeness Spit, just to the west of us. Extending 5.5 miles out into the Straits, it’s the longest spit in the country and if there’s a more glorious beach hike, I’m not sure I know where it is. After you get out there a couple of miles, it’s a very wild shore with a big straight-on shore break and that day it was approaching six feet – certainly not the same soft shoreline where this cockle lived it’s long quiet life of possibly 25 years.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on stretched canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $100 unframed.
A nice hardwood frame makes it a total of $130 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.

Another view:
And below is another version of the same painting I thought might be interesting to post. As I paint, sometimes I hit a big question mark. So, I scan it to have a fresh look on the computer screen. Things look completely different on a back-lit screen. It’s like seeing it for the first time, and I can go back into the studio and make some changes. The top painting is the finished effort, while this one was about half way along. Notice the differences?

Thanks for reading this week.
We now have a mobile phone app set up so if you read this from your smartphone, and it should look better. Tell us what you think.
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

Mount St. Helens Wayside Panels

Besides all the other stuff I’ve posted here over the past few months, I’ve been working on paintings for some outside panels at Mount St. Helens National Monument. Here’s the first one. Mount St. Helens is about half a day’s drive south of us, and last fall we were up there to have a look. The eruption happened 31 years ago, and the changes since the initial devastation are pretty amazing. Nature is back in a big way, and my paintings will help explain that. When we were here at this overlook at Meta Lake, there was a toad hatch-out, and what appeared to be squirming mud soon defined itself as a bunch of little amphibians. This species, and lots of others, survived the May 1980 blast because they were either in their dens under the snow, under the lake ice, or buried in mud.

I’ll show you the other panels in weeks to come. Learning about and then illustrating the giant eruption and its aftermath has been a fun project. I feel like we know that mountain in a much better way. It’s one of the reasons I continue to do this stuff. And if you’re on the north side Spirit Lake road, look for a little Eifert art gallery as you go – and you’ll learn about it too. Maybe I should put out a map and guide to all these waysides around the country where you can see my work on outdoor panels. I haven’t kept good track, but I’d guess we’re up to at least 400 by now.

These panels are being designed and created by Sea Reach Ltd. of Sheridan, Oregon – a bunch of very nice people. In an interesting twist, I also bid on this project, which Sea Reach won. Not to be left out, I contacted them and pleaded to be involved – and so here I am. No one ever said I was shy and retiring – but you already know that.

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 Tide – Butter Clam

Walking on the beach in town the other morning, I spotted this open shell and thought it just needed to be in a painting. It wasn’t the shell so much as the little ripples in the beach itself. As the tide goes below normal low, these quiet muddy beaches become exposed to us, showing all sorts of stuff not commonly seen. One of the most interesting parts of them, to me, are these little swales set up by the gentle wave action. These are only about 12″ apart and an inch deep, and they clearly show the soft wave energy in where normal “surf” is about 4″ high. Trough, hill, trough, hill – and on into the beach. It makes for an interesting subject to paint. In an hour, this scene was gone from view, covered by the next inbound tide.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on stretched canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $100 unframed.
A nice hardwood frame makes it a total of $130 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

Swan Song for Necedah

This should enlarge if you click it. You can also see it on the blog at http://larryeifert.com/wordpress

Just one last post with the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge murals because I think I’ve messed with this as much I can possible can. A month ago there was a beautiful clean and white wall. Perfect! Or at least that’s what I always think at that stage – and then I started painting the darned thing. March vanished, along with the white wall. On the last post I said the reception would be March 6th (tonight 5-7 at Union Bank), and I think everyone knew I was mentally-strained because no one called me on it.

Someone once asked me how I knew when a painting is finished. “When I’ve spent the money!” But that’s not really a decent answer, because the money-thing has never been that much of an issue with me. The real answer might be: It’s finished when I can’t stand to look at it anymore – and after 35 days, I’m at that point, so it’s time for a divorce. As Dan Hicks sang: “how can I miss you if you don’t go away.” Sometimes it takes me years before I can stomach to look at something like this again, but sometimes when I see it again (well, sometimes), I actually like it. Sometimes I look at it later and I wonder who painted it. Sometimes I look at it and wish I could try again. Who knows that this one will be.

Whichever this is, it’s finished so let’s move on. At 130 feet, it’s one of the most complex big walls I’ve painted in awhile and it was a bunch of fun. Thanks, Nancy, for holding the fort, the business, the house, the meals and all the rest together for the month. Oh, and she did a bunch of painting too. I gauged it at 40 days. I finished 5 days less than that, mainly because of her.

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. There’s a good essay there on her anniversary of being a runner for 36 years!!