Category Archives: New Painting Post

Blog Posts by Larry Eifert

New Painting Post, Uncategorized

Bristlecone Pines Jigsaw Puzzle

Bristlecone Pines puzzle box

Bristlecone Pines – The Trees That Rewrote History
 NEW jigsaw puzzle

I was commissioned for this new mural by the Crater Lake Institute, a most forward-thinking and generous bunch.  This painting is one I’ve wanted to do for years, and now, with the mural complete, we’ve also created a puzzle of the image.

If you don’t know, and many people don’t, bristlecone pines are high elevation mountaintop trees of the Great Basin in remote areas of Nevada, eastern California and Utah. I think they’re the most beautiful trees on the planet, and the starkness of their high-elevation surroundings just adds to their appeal. We’ve studied them in Bryce Canyon and Great Basin National Parks, and the famous Schulman Grove in the White Mountains east of Bishop, CA on Forest Service lands. In all these places, we’ve felt a reverence, an almost religious experience in even casually walking among these ancient trees. How ancient? Well, some still-living trees have been dated to having begun their living journey from a small seed almost 5000 years ago, making them the oldest single plant species on the entire planet. Branches and downed trees have been dated to almost twice that age, and have helped scientists better understand climate data since the Ice Age. That’s what the title, “The Trees that Rewrote History” refers to. With few wildfires and a high-desert arid climate , downed bristlecone wood stays around. To put this into a perspective we can maybe grasp better, these trees began life when there were woolly mammoths walking around North America!

Now, I just have to add this extra bit because it’s eaten at me for decades, and made educating people about bristlecones with my art a mission for me. This is a direct quote from Wikipedia: “In the Snake Range of eastern Nevada Donald R. Currey, a student of the University of North Carolina, was taking core samples of bristlecones in 1964. He discovered that “Prometheus” in a cirque below Wheeler Peak (in what is now Great Basin National Park) was over 4,000 years old. His coring tool broke, so the U.S. Forest service granted permission to cut down “Prometheus”. 4,844 rings were counted on a cross-section of the tree, making “Prometheus” at least 4,844 years old, the oldest non-clonal living thing known to man. … He never cut down another tree in his life.”

Enough said: you guys understand, and I think some of you might have actually known Mr. Currey, who died in 2004. It’s a sad tale, is it not? Why is it that we keep repeating needless destruction of this little planet? Well, I think it’s because we simply don’t appreciate something until it’s gone or screwed up beyond repair. Like Prometheus – or the Gulf wetlands we were in only six weeks ago.

So, my bristlecone image is now a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle (made of recycled materials, I might add) with a good interpretive essay on the box’s back along with a species key. You can buy it online or by email or call us at 1-888-437-2218 and we’ll ship it with an invoice. We’re trying to make it easier for readers who have difficulty with the web ordering-thing. If you’d like to bundle up several puzzles, it saves you shipping. Just tell us what you want.

Thanks for reading this week. This one meant a lot to me to finally see it in print – and it’s already selling – and educating – at some of the bristlecone parks.
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, Uncategorized

Road Trip – The Big Easy

St Charles Street Car – New Orleans

We could have ridden this all day long! First operated in 1833, New Orlean’s St Charles Street Car Line runs from Canal Street near the “Quarter” all he way out past Uptown, the Garden District and Magazine Street. When it gets to the end, the conductor simply turns all the seats around, goes to the other end of the car and off it goes in the other direction. For most of the way, the line goes down a grand oak-shaded boulevard with grass under the tracks and branches brushing the car’s top. The driver is loud and verbal, yelling out the names of streets and how “they’s lots of really stupid people, you know”.  One time he picked up a rider but said: “Don’t you dare think I’ll stop here again. Next time, you march yourself down to the next stop”. He was yelling, and they have to yell, because the trucks (yes, train car wheels are called trucks) are screeching and grinding into turns that thousands upon thousands of other wheels have rolled on, and the brass and hardwood construction isn’t what it used to be (but we think it’s better than it used to be). All the windows open fully, so you can hang  out and watch the stately homes going by – no guard rails, no ADA compliant, just great experiences without the Nanny State reeling you in.

And, to finish the story, the neighborhood street car dumps you in the French Quarter where you can buy a hand grenade to finish up with. It’s simply one of the great rides in America, and it’s only a buck and a quarter. Oh, and a hand grenade? It’s a frozen fruit slushy with pineapple and lime … and four shots of Everclear. Don’t know what Everclear is? It’s 185 proof pure grain alcohol, the French Quarter’s most powerful drink (outside of paint remover).

So that was the good news. The bad: It is just heart breaking to see Katrina’s footprint, the ruined and abandoned stately old houses in the Seventh and Ninth Wards. We camped in an RV park in the Seventh and each morning going into downtown on the shuttle we’d pass blocks of century-old smashed up homes, which is tragic, but I’d say 80% are now coming back to life. And they aren’t just replacing them with plastic sheetrock wonders you see across America, but they’re carefully putting the old ladies back together. Most of the old oaks are still here too, unlike my town of Port Townsend where they seem to hate an old tree. Here’s they’re treating the big trees like injured old-timers, which of course they are. “Hell of a job, Brownie” is the phrase that kept going through my head, that insane Bush statement that things were just dandy in the Big Easy after the hurricane passed. It might have been a big hurricane, but it was a man-made disaster because we didn’t maintain the levees properly.

If you get a chance, I’d recommend a little vacation to this amazing city on the Mississippi. It’s worth the effort to help retain a truly special place that belongs to all of us.

Larry Eifert

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

New Painting Post

Carson River Mural Unveiling

This week I finished up another large-scale habitat mural for a new visitor center along the Carson River in Nevada. This vibrant place, just below the High Sierra front and southeast of Lake Tahoe, has always been important to wildlife, and to me. I consider it one of the most beautiful and interesting places in the West.

As the winter snows melt off these great mountains in spring, this water runs off into the valley and eventually out into the Great Basin where it evaporates with summer heat. Along the way, vernal pools and backwater pockets are filled with rushes and cattails, providing fabulous habitat for birds that make wildlife-watching wonderful. I’ve gotten to know this area pretty well, as I’ve also painted another, similar painting just north of this for the Lahanton Valley National Wildlife Refuge. In some small way, I’m always hoping my work will open some eyes, change some hearts and minds and possibly, just possibly, make it so these beautiful landscapes (and fictitious paintings) will both continue past my lifetime.

I wrote two other posts for this one as the project progressed. Here’s the original sketch (these open in separate browser windows) and here’s the half-way image showing the development of details. It’s kind of fun to see all three stages because things always change as I go along. For example, I added a yellowthroat and a Savannah sparrow to the final – and they’re not in the second stage painting.

And below is the initial reference photo I developed the painting from. Supplied by the client (and, thank you, Anne), you can see how far from reality these big paintings stray. Still, there are basic elements here that remained the same, making it a recognizable place. I like to say this photo was the launching pad, but where the final painting landed, no one knew – especially me!

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff. To see more than 50 other murals like this, click here.

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

New Painting Post

Salmon Cascades – Olympic National Park

Salmon-Cascades
I spent the entire week drawing concept sketches for a new project, and I couldn’t have imagined a more fun time. And since I have graphite all over the place –  drawings for 130 running FEET of new murals and am completely disorganized, I thought I’d just post this finished painting here instead of showing you the sketches. Maybe it’ll calm me down. When I get the pencil drawings pasted together in some sort of publishable form, I’ll post them.
This painting is of Salmon Cascades – just west of us in Olympic National Park. It’s a favorite for many locals, because in Fall huge salmon come right up along the rock cliff on the left as the big fish prepare to jump the cascades. You can be within two feet of a very powerful fish waiting for just the right moment to make the leap, and it’s pretty thrilling. In late afternoon, the sun comes around to illuminate the mist from the falls, bathing the entire area in silver light.
This painting is acrylic on board, 12″ x 20″ and we’re offering it for $700 unframed. Email us for details. Click the image to enlarge.
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.

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New Painting Post

Where Are The Black-tails?

Deer-Wet-Meadow
 Where are all the deer? I asked that yesterday, realizing I hadn’t seen one in our meadow for a long while. (click the painting and it should enlarge.

We’ve created a pretty critter-friendly habitat here in our little patch of forest and meadow, and the wildlife know it. We’ve kept a count of our critters over the years and now have a ‘yard list’ of over 80 species. A salt lick for the deer, a couple of feeders, no outside pets (especially cats) and over the years we now have Douglas squirrels patiently waiting right on the feeder while we dish out the morning seeds. Two hummers are still overwintering. The Cooper’s hawk juvies still fly around overhead freaking out the towhees and chickadees. But the deer? Don’t know!

All summer we had two families of deer – multiple fawns in tow. We’re in a no-shooting zone around here, so when Fall safely progressed, alters appeared on the bucks and lots of coy antics went on it the meadow – lots of racing around like they were all schoolyard kids. But then (with hunting season the last two weeks in October) the deer just vanished. It must just be habit. They’re safe here, and they seem to know it, judging by their ‘almost’ taking our homegrown apples out of our hands, but, poof, they were gone anyway. Now, in a couple of months I know they’ll be back, females with a new one or two in their bellies. It’s a cycle of life I know I can depend on – but what’s the deal? Why don’t they just stay?

Black-tailed deer in a wet meadow:

No deer, so I painted one. 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 read my other blog entries, check the blog here.

Thanks for reading this week. It’s a window into our little artistic world here.
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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New Painting Post, Posts about other stuff

Merry Christmas and Thanks

Green_Chickadee

This is one of Virginia Eifert’s ‘famous’ hand-painted Christmas cards. Inside is hand-written calligraphy:
Now let the echoes
of the songs of May
Refresh and warm your hearts
on Christmas Day – 1963

I was 17 then and just beginning to sell my stuff at art fairs and local shows. Not very well, I’ll admit, but it was a passionate start.

She sent these cards each year for decades, ending with her death in 1966. I’ve heard from people who still have many of them, some even framed, for she painted hundreds. I did too, until my real work simply swallowed this up. Unlike me, Virginia was legendary for being able to do it all (except maybe clean the house or teach her son to do the same), which brings me around to what I really want to say here.

Merry Christmas and loving thanks to everyone reading this. We’re sending a genuine thank-you to the fantastic group of friends, clients and buyers who have supported Nancy and me as artists all these years. It’s now been over four decades of making a living as a working artist, beginning way back in the 1960’s with a gentle but firm push from Virginia.

Thanks to all of you who have faithfully bought my work, but also thanks to all the people who sell our stuff in park stores coast to coast, in galleries and countless other places. It’s a very wide web these days, and unfortunately I’ll never personally meet many of you.

And thanks, also, to someone I DO know, thanks to my very most important and special person, Nancy Cherry Eifert, who not only has a photo career of her own, but also handles the licencing, royalties, commissions and shipping, including orders from that pesky website that never seems to work properly. She’s an amazing partner that can multi-task with the best of them. They say that, these days especially, it takes at least two people working more than full-time to be one professional artist. We’ll both tell you that’s certainly true.

I know this won’t last forever -I wish it would, but I won’t stop or even slow down exploring nature through my art and words. Like Carl Rungius, the Canadian painter of wildlife I admire greatly, I want to drop dead at my easel a few long decades from now – and we hope you’ll continue to come along for the ride until then.

Thanks again for reading this week, and have a Happy Christmas.
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. Her new website is almost ready, but not quite yet.

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

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New Painting Post

Wish I Was On This Trail!

With rotten weather and the short dark days of Winter Solstice upon us, I just felt an urge to have a summer walk in the woods – so I painted one. It’s no place in particular, but it’s also every place I’ve ever hiked on the West Coast – redwoods, Doug-fir, silver fir, maybe Sitka spruce trails. It could be the Trinity Alps, Olympic’s Hoh, Mt Rainier’s Carbon River or possibly the Dosewallips right near us. It’s all those late afternoons I’ve spent lingering on a trail in the warm sunshine not wanting to head home. It’s smelling ancient forest duff, filled with centuries of life that are slowly decomposing into the next generation of trees. And, for a painter, it’s the way the light bounces from tree to tree, warming the colors of some, cooling others, hinting at more detail than I could ever paint.


Email us for details.

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

Boy, I sure got a lot of mail last time with the hummingbird-thing. I heard from people all over the country who have hummers attempting to stay the winter – really cold places too, like high mountain communities and along the Canadian border. Come to think of it, WE’RE along the Canadian border. We can see it from the beach. If you wonder if Climate Change is upon us, these hummers are great local examples. I’ve also heard from a fair amount of doubters, saying the BECAUSE of the feeders, these birds are here, but we didn’t feed them until AFTER we spotted them, months past when they should have migrated to Mexico. One writer said she had a hummer outside trying to get something out of a frozen feeder. Maybe we’ll never know for sure, but it’s plain obvious to me.

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. We’re working on a new website for her work that should be very interesting. Stay tuned.

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

New Painting Post

Red-breasted Nuthatch

If you click the image, it should enlarge. If it doesn’t click here for the web blog.
SOLD. Sorry to say, I sold this before I could get it up here. Thought I’d send it out anyway. I think it’s a nice little painting.

These little birds are constant neighbors here. I’ll bet we have at least five families around our meadow. We watch them from our dining room windows working the feeder, daintily picking at the suet cake and carrying away one sunflower seed at a time up to the safety of the nearest branch. Their voices are so thin and sweet as to sometimes sound like fluttering leaves. These guys normally feed by circling down tree trunks as in the painting, gleaning insects from bark crevices. They then fly over to another tree and start again. We have another bird here, the brown creeper, that fills just the opposite niche. It circles up the trunk, catching bugs the nuthatches miss.

 Did I ever say I take commissions? Lots of them. If you liked this one, I won’t do it again, but it’s always a treat for me to try a subject in a different way. This painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and we offered it for $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.

Thanks for reading this week. Nuthatches: It feels like I’ve just painted a family member here.
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. She has some interesting new work from the Seattle Day of the Dead Festival on her blog.

I recently put up a web page of many of my murals. I think there’s about 50 of them here. Check it out.

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

New Painting Post

Ancient Bristlecone Pines mural

Finally, I got this puppy finished up. It was quite a handful with lots of other work coming and going through the studio. If you click on the image, it should enlarge. If not, go here to the blog.

This is destined for The Crater Lake Institute, that, through the years, has commissioned me for many of these types of paintings. Next summer we’ll have products like puzzles available, but there’s lots of design work to do before that happens.

When I sent out the sketch for this awhile ago, I received lots of mail about where to see these trees and just how to do a painting like this. The 3′ x 5′ painting is on hardboard so I had a smooth surface to begin with. I primed it with dry-brush latex to rough it up slightly, making for good textural effects. These are worked up from the back forward, so the foreground flowers are the last to go in, and there’s lots of hidden stuff in that foreground. I recently put up a page on the main website with a page of murals. There’s currently about 50 for you to see, so check it out here.

SO: Where can you see these bristlecones (that DO have bristled cones)? Well, you’re not going to this time of year, but if you’re looking for a great trip next summer, check out the bristlecones east of Bishop CA in the Whites or at Great Basin National Park way out near Ely Nevada, or Brice Canyon National Park in Utah. They’re high-elevation trees – at 10,000 feet or so on dry windswept ridgetops in limestone, a place where nothing else can easily grow. It’s worth a trip to walk beneath the oldest trees on the planet, some dated to almost 5,000 years of age. Even the downed branches are beyond my comprehension – some have been dated back 9,000 years from the present. To put that into context, the woolly mammoth was still around then!

Here’s the original pencil sketch:

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. There’s some good new stuff here on her blog about the Day of the Dead Celebration in Seattle.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us. If you know someone else that might enjoy this, let us know. Our list is growing.

New Painting Post

Riverside Red Alders

I’m still whacking away on the bristlecone painting for Crater Lake Institute, but here’s something I did yesterday just for the pleasure of it. If you click the image, it should enlarge. If not, just go to the blog. I have more of these, but my web server has been ‘migrating’, so the blog has been shut down this week. Just what ‘migrating’ means, I’m not sure, but I wish I was doing some of that myself. Avalanche warnings are up in the mountains already.

For those reading from other parts of the planet besides the Northwest, red alder is a common lowland tree found in moist Northwest stream-side forests. They often appear after logging to revitalize trashed-out land and conveniently add nitrogen to the soil by ‘fixing’ it from the air. Our woods are full of them, so I know the tree well. In fact, there’s currently a red-alder log in the fire as I write this. It’s a very beautiful tree to paint because of the gray and brown, speckled patchwork trunk patterns. There are other alders, but this one has a sure identifier. The edges of each leaf curl under slightly right along the edges – a little fact that most field guides don’t tell you.

This original acrylic painting is varnished 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.

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 on her blog and website. Pretty interesting stuff on the blog.

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

You can also leave comments on the blog here. Every little bit helps me understand how to be a better painter.