Category Archives: New Painting Post

Blog Posts by Larry Eifert

Commissioned paintings, Murals, National Park Service, New Painting Post

San Juan Island NHP – the final story

I wanted to post this since I’m almost at the end of this long-running project. This is being installed shortly in the new visitor center, San Juan Island National Historical Park, Washington State. Two murals and 18 other pieces of art, this was all started in November 2020, 530 days ago as of April 14. These things take time, patience and ‘keep smiling, this can’t go on forever’. (all images should enlarge in your browser, and you’ll  need that for a 35-feet painting. 

Above is my original concept sketch, drawn on a piece of writing paper and placed in the plans (that weren’t even finished yet). This was for EDX, the designer and a wonderful company in Seattle I truly enjoy working with.  Below, you can see the expanded version, bigger paper, more details I researched using Edward Curtis historic photos for references.

You can see how these things progress, adding detail at each stage.

Then we realized a wall with my second mural would block the left side, so I moved things around. Same content, just in different places.

And then, just like that I painted it. The fabrication contract was won by Capitol Museum Services near Washington DC, and I was on the bid as the artist that would, in effect, finish the same project I had started months before! The park would have preferred color references first for the painting, but I just went for it.  I painted it half size, cut it in pieces so I could scan it, which was done in 110 individual scans on my flat-bed, then pieced together on my computer.  I wonder how many artists in this country could have done all this ‘in house’?

And below is the wall it’s going on in the new visitor center, 35 feet wide by 17 feet tall. My second mural of the prairie is going on the wall to the left.

And here’s the other mural, a current scene of the park’s prairie.

A long and winding road, isn’t that what life should be. This one made me thankful I’m still doing this, a straight and narrow path of painting American nature at its best.

More soon. Stay tuned. Feel free to pass this around. People seem to enjoy seeing my process.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

New Painting Post, New Published Story, Published painting, Sailing, Wildlife

#118 – My Last 48 North story

When it’s time to paint something else!

I sail around in my little boat (whichever one I have currently – there have been 6 – 6 break-out-another-thousand stands for ‘boat’). It’s a floating studio, and learn about what I’m seeing. I’ve done this for decades, but since 2012, I’ve made one-page art stories of these little journeys for 48 North magazine in Seattle, 118 stories total, once a month without fail.

Anemones, whales, worms, birds, urchins, clams, salmon, it’s all been fair game, researched and painted. Time to do another issue? I just go for a sail and there would always be next month’s story.

This month, I wrote about this guy, a hermit crab – a crab that borrows other shells to live in. Here were the drawings I did to get it started.

Then it turned into this refined page, and I wrote some text to go with it.

This one will be my last. Time to go in another direction, don’t you think? I mean, really, 118!! And some artist’s claim they need, what, motivation or inspiration to get started?

For me, it all started with this issue in 2012. At the time, I had been writing similar stories, but much longer, for 48 North but also the Seattle Times, using my art with the words. It was in that order, write it, then paint it. These sketchbook journals were the opposite. I did the art first.

July 2012-The the  first  issue.

This was a colaboration with Nancy. Her photo, my drawings and words. Our boat!

And at the same time, I made a few covers for them. This one of our boat of the left, 1939 Sea Witch, and the otters that were living there as well. We had geraniums on the dock in summer. Locals will probably recognize those other boats, three historic woodies living together. The guy on the right makes high-end violin bows, the black hulled boat belonged to an architect, and us – painters of nature.

So, all these stories can be found here, or almost all 118 of them, on my website.

It’s been fun, but time to move into other types of paintings and writing. Time to explore other ideas and continue on with these huge National Park Service projects – and, boy, are they piled up awaiting.

More soon. Stay tuned. Feel free to pass this around. People seem to enjoy seeing my process.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

Commissioned paintings, National Park Service, New Painting Post, People Paintings

Wrapping Up My American Camp mural

This photo was sent by Margy Emerson of her sister next to the installation.

Getting close to the final brushstroke on this 35-foot wall for the San Juan National Historical Park visitor center mural. How does a painter know when it’s the final brush stroke? When he can’t stand to make another one! (or so the old saying goes.) This wall was probably more brush strokes that I would have liked, but the entire process was interesting, challenging and really fun. I can’t help but feel grateful for the opportunity.

Here are some section shots that should enlarge in your browser so you can see it better. I think there are around 105 Indians, 18 gulls, 3 eagles and 2 wool dogs. Those wool dogs are an extinct species of dogs tribal weavers would use for wool, and I have one of them spinning with a drop spindle.

The scene is at South Beach, San Juan Island, Washington, a place that is now a national historic park. Historically, It’s a park because of the Pig War in 1859 between the U.S. and Britain. In reality, the “history” is more about the giant salmon runs in late summer, when millions of fish coming down the Strait of Juan de Fuca would crowd the shoreline. For thousands of years, many different tribes would show up here to catch and dry a few of these fish, and also dig camas bulbs, and catch up on the news. Both the salmon and camas flour were important winter foods.

The painting is supposed to show pre-European contact, so no iron, steel, or woven cotton fabric. It was fun to research all this, but it’s also why I enjoy making art so much for the National Park Service. We both feel art is a good way to show our legacy, our history and future (see the current generation and future generation down in the right corner). The NPS seriously pushes me to paint beyond what I’ve ever thought I’d paint. This project made me realize how grateful I am for taking physics and algebra in high school!

Here’s a photo of my studio with part of this being painted. See those reference photos down along the bottom? Nancy was my model for almost every one of the people.

Below is the visitor center wall this is going on. It’ll be installed by early summer if we’re all lucky, along with another 11 paintings from me, and all the other exhibits. Capitol Museum Services from Manassas Virginia is doing the installation.

The outside of the new visitor center with Nancy in front and a truly amazing Douglas-fir that they basically built the building around. Most commercial projects would have just bulldozed the tree, cleared the land and then planted little Mall-Ready trees, but not the NPS!

And the last two photos are the location of the painting a quarter mile from the visitor center. It’s actually a couple of square miles of landscape all pushed together into one painting, add people, voila!

When I was growing up, the kid of two people who worked for the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois, I would go down to the museum after school. My babysitters were the curators who were building giant habitat exhibits much like this new wall mural. Most of the exhibits were about nature, but a couple were of Indian life. Robert Larson, a famed painter in charge of this (and a big man who didn’t need a ladder to paint the sky) would talk to me as he worked about what he was doing. I was always a little kid with his mouth open in awe. That was 60 years ago! I know Bob would have enjoyed this, wanted to be a part of it. His kindness and friendship, along with all the rest of those wonderful people in the museum’s back end, are still a factor in my life.

Here’s a photo of Larson doing a plaque of my mom after her death. It’s in the Virginia Eifert Book Store in the museum. And below, one of his big Indian paintings at the museum.

Robert Larson paints the Archaic diorama in the ÒPeoples of the PastÓ exhibit. Photo courtesy Illinois State Museum

More soon. Stay tuned. Feel free to pass this around. People seem to enjoy seeing my process.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

New Painting Post

A Bunch of Art for Capital Reef National Park

I’ve painted a bunch of stuff for Capital Reef National Park in Utah before, simply one of the most glorious pieces of scenery in an area full of glorious places. Murals, nature guides, trail guides, images made into posters and puzzles – the works. Now they have a new visitor center and I just finished 21 pieces of art for new exhibits. Here are some.

It used to be they had stuffed dead animals in visitor centers. No more of THAT stuff. Instead, they hire me to paint life-sized renderings that get printed on upright metal slabs, and it might actually look better than old moth-eaten dead things.  The mountain lion was especially fun, but the jackrabbit and coyote were, too.

And here’s how it will look in the visitor center once it’s installed. Fairly realistic and hopefully it’ll make kids run for the door.

Then there are nine of these things, all either full paintings or pen and watercolor of the geologic features. They’re not large, but hopefully accurate enough to how this place actually looks. This is involved in a strata wall showing all the layers and layers that make that place so colorful and amazing.

Then there are eight of these, fun little paintings (fun for me) of ancient geologic moments in time that show how all this came together to become Capital Reef National Park.

Thanks to everyone at the park for bringing me back to contribute once again to this great place. I simply never want to stop doing this, now in my 5th decade of painting national parks in America. And, amazingly, they always say yes.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

Commissioned paintings, National Park Service, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Everglades Preliminary Drawings

This is the fishing camp we could have stayed in, accessible only by air boat – but NO, I had to sleep in the Best Western in Homestead, Florida! Yes, I checked it out and the python had left.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few weeks, but the art has been flowing out of here like a narrow channel after a King Tide. Meaning fast and furious. I was in Everglades National Park in July for a site visit for this and now have all 17 drawings in refined versions finished up. After this, let the paint begin so this gater-guy can admire the installation right next to his home slough.

All these are for outdoor waysides, so they’ll have text blocks.  That’s what the empty white areas are for. I know, it would be better if it was all painting, but these installations will teach people about this place for many decades – long after I’m gone, kids will wander down these boardwalks and maybe learn something. One is bigger, an 8′ wide mural, but I haven’t started that yet.

These are some photos of the site visit. Lots of walking slowly around and talking, the pros telling us Northwesterners the scoop about this rare place. I learned a lot about a lot, from one end of the Sea of Grass to the other.

This drawing is about the strange and wonderful anhinga bird, and it’s actually going ON the anhinga trail. These birds hunt by slowly swimming along underwater and stabbing fish, and I got to watch that in action.

And several pieces of art are about herons. Lots of herons. There are TEN species of herons in this one painting and shows how they follow the receding water level as the season’s change and the ‘river’ dries.

There’s an algae that grows all over the place here. Periphyton. It’s food, shelter and covers the ground pretty much everywhere the shallow water is. It floats, then dives to the bottom, then dries out then the water recedes. All in one painting!

Stay tuned as this project develops. I want to thank the good folks at EDX Exhibits in Seattle for taking another chance on me, for traveling across the country and then still speak to me! Life is good.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

New Painting Post

American Golden-plover

This is my October 49 North magazine story. I got my copy in the mail the other day and thought I should put it here now, too. Magazines are in the stores. Here’s the story that went with the sketchbook art. This isn’t a bird that’s too common around  my home here in Port Townsend, so I did a story about what I saw.

Last spring, I saw hundreds of American golden-plovers on the western wilderness beaches of Olympic National Park. They were spending their days resting and eating sand flies, then at dusk they would rise in a rush of wings and head north, using the safety of darkness to fly. Migration is a long journey for these nine-inch birds.

They winter in Argentina and Uruguay, then fly all the way to the Canadian arctic to nest – and then return. Repeat yearly! They can do that because of the swept-backed skinny shape of their wings, and comparisons to tall windward sail designs is obvious. It’s still a dangerous and grueling journey twice a year – they live lives on the wing. Once on the nesting grounds, males build crude nests lined with lichens and four eggs appear. Males incubate by day, females at night. Chicks can feed themselves within a few hours of hatching, and I take it that it takes four chicks per pair each year to replace the birds lost during those long migrations.

I have pleasant memories of those birds last spring, but then kayaking along the outer breakwater at Port Townsend recently, I saw a large flock of golden-plovers sitting on the rocks. Some still had their summer feathers, along with a bunch of youngsters in drab browns, and it was like seeing old friends again. I quietly floated right up to them, had a good look and then they flew in a cloud and came around to land just a few yards away. I wondered if any of these were the very same birds I saw a few months earlier and realized how connected we all are to wildlife – if we only are aware of it. Boats were coming and going right over on the breakwater’s other side, yet here was a little community of birds from Argentina and the Arctic, just gabbing away at each other. It’s not what you see when you look, but what you understand.

And many of you ask about my process, so here’s the original pencil sketch, and below after I painted it up with my cheap but trusty Prang watercolor kit.

And on that beach in spring, I did this little watercolor of a golden-plover standing right in front of me. That’s my little Six Moon tent at the bottom.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

New Painting Post, Published painting, Wildlife

A Story about Painted Anenomes

This is my monthly story for September 2021 in 48 North magazine.  By a quick count, it’s my 111th edition, probably worthy of a book if I had the time to put it together. It’s still fun for me to do, to go out and see something interesting and new that I don’t know about. I  research it and paint it – and I gain more fun knowledge to stuff in my ancient brain. I think it keeps me young!

Here’s the story:

Anemones are mostly stationary animals that have stinging tentacles to subdue prey. Their waving arms then transport the hapless creature to a center mouth where it quickly becomes the next meal. The Painted Anemone, also known as Christmas Anemone, is one of the most common anemones around the San Juan Islands. They feed on crabs, mussels, barnacles and fish. Not every creature is fair game, as the Candy-striped Shrimp (appropriately named), seems to be immune to the sting, and so one can find a candy-stripe next to a painted, neatly tucked into the anemone’s waving arms of death.

Painted Anemones are about five inches tall, drama queen colored and sport about 100 tentacles arranged in circular rows. Somehow, these creatures can attack the relatively huge Sunflower Star, a star that can grow to a three-foot diameter. We don’t need to dive to see these striking animals as they’re commonly seen on a minus tide, drooping or hanging from sheltered rocks like a deflated balloon. They don’t have bones to hold them upright when out of the water. While it seems they’re ‘stuck’ in place, anchored like a plant, if extreme danger threatens, they can ‘unstick’ themselves and move away on foot. It must work, because Painted Anemones can live sixty to eighty years.

And here’s the pencil drawing before the watercolor was added. It’s a quick and really abstract process for me. Not much thought does into it, but then again it’s ALL thought – a free thought from eyes to fingers.


And below is a closeup piece of it to s how how abstract and scribbly it was.  Somehow it all comes together with the paint.

Larry Eifert paints and sails the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

Backpacking, Backpacking, New Painting Post, New Published Story, Wildlife

A Wildlife Encounter

The Olympic Endemics

On a recent hike in the Olympic Mountains, I decided to turn my paintbrush towards the endemic Olympic Marmot. There are five mammals and nine others (fish and amphibians) that are only found here and nowhere else on the planet.  That’s right, only here! So if you see an alpine chipmunk, it’s the Olympic Chipmunk!

The Olympic Marmot is a woodchuck-type critter that lives in burrows just at treeline. They’re worth painting. I also did some watercolors of their world, a rare place with fragile flowers and manicured meadows, streams falling and pocket ponds people would pay big money for at home – but here it’s just why I come in the first place, and the only real cost is sweat. It’s a singular place like no other I know.

But the marmots aren’t the wildlife I want to tell you about. Here’s a little story about one night there, very small tent and a big experience that was, in the end, a great memory. It was just getting dark and . . . .

I zipped my Lunar Solo tent’s fly shut, snuggled into my bag and fell sound asleep. No moon tonight, the night was pitch black except the amazing spectacle of the Milky Way above.  Sometime later, I was suddenly awakened by someone, or something, rattling the tent, grunting, heavy breathing. I was in the Olympics, so no grizzlies, but still! It was really shaking.

Then, another set of major rattling and just as I started to yell a warning, down the tent came on top of my head, me in a sort of Lycra cocoon, fumbling both for the zipper and the light. Then more noises outside (wait, I WAS outside – nylon doesn’t count). I realized it was more deerlike than bear, I thought. I got the zipper open, and from my knee viewpoint there I was – looking up at two rather enormous bucks, lots of fuzzy antlers, and one of my hiking sticks in someone’s mouth. Deer slobber, yuck.

The Olympic Mountains of Washington are rare in that there aren’t any mineral deposits, no salts to licks, no seeps, and so all the animals are mineral-starved. The Olympic chipmunk wants your potato chip for the salt, not the food. The deer follow you around hoping you will urinate so they can lick it up, immediately.  It’s a little off-putting at first, but then we all just get used to it – and these two were after the salt on my hiking stick’s handles.  They weren’t going anywhere until I provided a diversion, so – well, with my light I walked over and found a big flat rock.  I’d tell you what it was like to walk across a black meadow with two 200-lb. deer right on my heels, but I’ll let you imagine it.

Back in bed, I listened to both of them licking away, shoving each other, heavy breathing, some grunting. Just try to put that out of your mind and go back to sleep!

Glacier lilies form fields of yellow and white, thousands of them. These glorious flowers seem to prefer the sheltered meadows or under trees. I think they’re easily burned by the sun, so they’ve learned to grow best without the intense alpine sun blasting them.

Later in the hike, top of the pass. I soon turn 75 and feel seriously grateful I can still do this. Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

[previous title] — [next title]

Hiking, New Painting Post, New Published Story, Published painting, Washington State Parks

Feather Boa – 48 North magazine


With this August 2021 edition, I’ve now done about 110 of these pages, and while I’ve been considering possibly NOT doing any more, I mean, how long can this go on? But I’ve just learned so very much about the Salish Sea by making these pieces of art, researching the details, that I really can’t stop. I see now that you can never learn too much about this stuff, especially in the middle of my seventh decade.  It’s all the fine details about how these things live, how amazing it all is. And besides, it’s really fun to spot something interesting and rush home to write about it – paint it.

Here’s the original drawing, which I did some of while walking Port Townsend’s North Beach at low tide. A VERY low tide, possibly the lowest of the year. All this feather boa kelp was strewn about on the sand, making great abstract forms and shapes.

So, I wrote this in the 2021 August issue of 48 North.

Saw this feather boa on a low-tide beach walk. There was a sandy beach, solid boulders, a place where currents flow –  and all that equals kelp. There are at least 140 types of brown seaweeds here in the Northwest and they all work in similar ways. The permanent base attaches itself to solid underwater rocks. These are usually on underwater reefs and onshore rocks down to about 50 feet deep. If you see kelp floating up ahead of you, there can only be one reason it’s there – ROCKS!

By summer, this plant joins the other kelps in creating real forests of lush green and brown plants waving in the current. While bull kelp stipes (the trunk) and blades (the leaves) can grow 100 feet a season, the feather boa gets to be about 30 feet long, and in my mind it’s the most beautiful of them all. Based on a single velvet-looking stipe about an inch wide, several different types of blades branch off in wild profusion. There are gas-filled bladders that hold the plant up towards the light like little life jackets, single leaves that look like tiny willow leaves, and skinnier lateral branches that look like twigs with smaller blades at each end. The entire thing is shimmery golden brown.

These plants are key habitat to almost countless other creatures and food for many crabs and snails, sea slugs and fish. When you spot feather boas on the beach at low tide, carefully turn over the blades and see what surprises await you. It’s possibly the best reason to come here.

To end, there are lots of parts in this thing. There’s the ‘main stem’ that looks like velcro. Then along the edges are bladders filled with gas so it floats up into the current. The leaves in between provide the photosynthesis to make it live that are all sorts of shapes and sizes, very random. All this on something possibly 20 feet long, and it all grows from a root clinging to an exposed rock, each and every summer!

Larry Eifert paints and sails the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.

[previous title] — [next title]

Commissioned paintings, New Painting Post, Sailing, Waysides, Wildlife

Orcas Landing Waysides – San Juan Islands

This was the Orcas Landing in the San Juan Islands of Washington State a couple of years ago, cleaned up from when there were giant fuel tanks here. In the 1980’s I tied up at this dock, and did it again with another boat in the 1990’s. Now the tanks are gone, a new dock that’s not falling apart is there and, some of my art.

I received some photos of the final installation and it looks very good, so I thought I’d share it here. It took three years to get this figured out, but my part was just a small piece of it. If you’re waiting in line for the ferry, just walk down the ramp and enjoy the view.

I did two wayside panels here. One about the rich aquatic ecosystem right under the docks – a landscape few of us ever see.

And a panel about the tribal connections here.  For hundreds of years, the Tulalip tribe would use their canoes with a complicated cedar fiber net system to create an artificial reef to trap salmon. Reef fishing, it was called. Back in the 80’s, I saw some of this actually happening and I’ll bet I’m probably the only artist around that could paint reef fishing from memory. For the bottom part, I used artifact photos from the Burke Museum as references for the tools, and a photo of the planking of our own cedar-sided house as a background. I thought it worked pretty well to tell a complicated story. These two images enlarge if you click on them.

San Juan County removed the wooden decking, added seating and new metal and cement decking, a huge tribal mural painted on the nearby building and some really wonderful iron blacksmithing of bull kelp.

In my mind, this is exactly how public art should be approached. Not ‘art by committee’ where a group selects some strange design by low-bid, but working it out with a broad number of skilled individuals coming together to contribute what they each do best. Check out the seating and native plant garden. I’m proud to have been a part of this, and it sort of comes full-circle for me and my history here.

And here’s a story in the local paper on Orcas Island.

A new experience, three years in the making, awaits you at the ferry landing

This makes a grand total of 24 paintings now installed on Orcas Island as public art. I get around!

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

Larry Eifert

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 – 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.