Category Archives: Wildlife

Backpacking, Hiking, National Park Service, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Back to the Beach

Some little paintings of my time there, inside that tent at sunset, and below, low tide watching sea otters herd the kids around the little bay. They’re simple paintings, but make good memories seeing them again here. 

I went back to a wilderness beach hike with my little Six Moon Designs tent and my paints. I had plenty of great nature to worship, including an amazing belly-up humpback whale and a Steller’s sealion, both washed up without much injury as far as I could tell. I’m telling you, it is thrilling to walk up to a 30-foot whale on a wilderness beach, a sort of primal experience I will remember for awhile. As I walked up to it, sounds seemed to become sort of diminished, as if I were walking into a quiet room. It was a long way from the water, as you can see in the photo – a minus tide put the waves very far away and the whale seemed oddly out of place.

Then this guy:Exactly above my tent in the top canopy of a Sitka spruce, this bald eagle started in at about 5:30 am, broadcasting its discontent at not seeing breakfast out in the ocean I guess – or, who knows what. Soon the ravens got involved – and it was all over for a sleep-in morning. The Starbucks was made early! Later, I watched this eagle spot a fish at least 300 yards out from where it sat on a treetop, taking a long glide off the branch and catch it! How could it see that far?

I just recently finished three large paintings for Redwood National Park through the Save-the-Redwoods League. In one, I painted the canopy fern mats that develop in ancient trees (not just redwoods) that come from centuries of needle litter building up on branches. These become pockets of leather ferns, huckleberrys and critters. The wandering salamander live generations in those mats, and marbled murrelets, an endangered sea bird, nest on them.

Walking out of the hike to the trailhead, I spotted this one on an ancient Sitka spruce, not far above my head. It had all the components, leather fern, black huckleberry and maybe some salamanders hidden away in the roots. It all seemed to tie together that my work is my play, my hiking is directly tied to my art. It’s just all one. A symbiosis, if you will, of cause and effect.  Symbiosis is interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both. Art and nature, I am who I am, therefore it seems I have to paint and write about it, hopefully to the benefit of nature.

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.

People Paintings, Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

An Art Gallery Along the Trail

I may paint giant walls and entire park visitor center installations, but some of my favorite projects involve small and intimate encounters along a trail somewhere. Olmstead Place State Historic Park is near Ellensburg Washington just east of the Cascades and is an intact historic farm that clearly shows how tough if was to live here a century ago. Little trails, historic farm buildings, a historic garden and much more. It’s a small place, but in the past couple of years I’ve contributed quite a bit of art to telling its story. Laura Busby at the park recently sent me some installation photos, so I’m sharing them here.

Imagine, you’re walking along a pleasant riparian trail and you come across these:

It’s what I’m all about, I think. Helping people to stumble across an art installation in the woods and also learn a bit about this place, too. Perfect!

Here are most of the paintings as I last saw them, ready to be fabricated and installed.

This second set of panels are placed on the walking trail around the homestead. They’re slightly smaller and painted with watercolor and pencil.

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.

Published painting, Sailing, Wildlife

Humpback Whales

This art and the story at the bottom were published as my page in 48 North magazine a few months ago, December 2020. I just haven’t found time to publish it here, too.

I tend to put together real-life experiences with my art, and this was a perfect example. It means I get to experience something more than once. A few months before this, I was solo sailing out of the Port Townsend Boat Haven marina, got about 300 yards off shore and first heard it, like a giant woosh of a bus falling driving off a dock. Then a vivid smell of foul rotten fish, lots of it. I instantly knew what this was as we’d had the same experience when Nancy and I sailed in Mexico on another boat we owned for a time.

I turned in the cockpit, and an adult humpback breached again right in front of me on its way going down the waterfront. Let me say here that a humpback has flippers as long as my little 19′ Lightning, never mind the entire whale. Humpbacks, they weight about as much as 20 cars – me and my boat, about 1000lbs. But the whale had other things on its mind than me, and went on past with few seeing it, right down the waterfront full of tourists unaware that a viewing chance in a lifetime was only a few feet away.

Pre-sketches for the art. I was fixated with this humpback eye, a very human-like and soulful look. (I got this off the web, thankfully not in person.

Here’s the text for the story: Last month, a juvenile humpback whale was found on the beach at Marrowstone Island, probably hit by a freighter – so this is sort of a requiem to that whale, but also just to pay homage to a species that’s now returning to the Salish Sea after decades of being missing-in-action. After whaling was outlawed in the 1960’s, after there were only about 1000 humpbacks left along the entire West Coast, this critter has made a healthy comeback. Like the gray whale, these animals spend their summers in the north, then migrate south for the winter – and some are now stopping by the Salish Sea to visit us. They are interesting and smart creatures with complex social lives. They sing memorized songs, and the young quietly whisper these tunes as they’re learning them, possibly to avoid being heard by killer whales. They gather together to fish, blowing bubble clouds from beneath schools of small fish or krill to herd them together like a net – a net of bubbles.

These are big creatures, the size of a school bus and weighing up to 40 tons. That’s as much as 20 cars! It would take a 40’ boat slip to moor one adult. Their flippers can be 16 feet long, the longest arms of any creature and tails can be bigger yet. Interestingly, humpback’s heads are different than most whales, covered with round knobby-like structures. Each knob sports at least one stiff hair and it is thought this might be like a motion sensor, but no one really knows. With gray whales, minke and orcas here, the best way to i.d. a humpback isn’t the ‘hump’, which is not a hump at all but just the way they dive by arching their back, but the enormous flipper arm. If you see one of these whales, appreciate it for its amazing comeback from threat of extinction.

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, Sailing, Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

Sucia Island Marine Food Webs

There are 16 paintings here, all in layers!

This is my second effort for two wayside panels at Sucia Island in the San Juan Islands. See the other one here. This one is much more complex, many pieces of art all layered together to tell the story of forage fish, salmon and orca whales.

Here is the initial concept.

And here is the seventh version.

And below are the individual little paintings used to make this final composite.

Many Friends groups often use my final art for other uses. We put the art on posters, jigsaw puzzles, framed art they can use for fund-raising. Sorry to say, but obviously that can’t be the case with this one – but I thought the orca and salmon paintings were worthy of being stand-alone art.

I know lots of Northwest boaters read this blog since I also write a monthly page for 48 North, the Puget Sound boating magazine. Next time you’re anchored off Sucia Island, search out these two installations. They’ll be living their lives sitting beside Mud Bay. I will, too.

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, Sailing, Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

Sucia Island State Park wayside art

I’ve been busy with no time to post here – but now I’m back with some new stuff. I was commissioned to produce two outdoor free-standing installations on one of the most remote and remarkable islands in the Salish Sea, Sucia Island Marine State Park. This place holds great meaning and many memories for me – I’ve been here countless times. It’s along the US – Canadian boundary north of the San Juan Islands and it takes some time just to get there. There isn’t ferry service, only private boats come here – and maybe a giant barge for this project.

A small muddy bay once had a sand spit beach dividing off a productive and pristine salt marsh with the bay. Years ago, a road was built on the beach top and shoreline armoring with a culvert. This stopped salmon completely from entering the marsh at high tides, a good source of insect food.

With the direction of the Friends of the San Juans and many funders, they brought out heavy equipment on a barge and removed the culvert, cement armoring and put things right again. And, at the end, I got to paint it, twice. I’ll post the second panel soon.

Here’s the original first draft sketch – pretty close to what the end result was, don’t you think?  And below is the final sketch version with text in place and a few things added.

Below is the final art, ready to be put in the design. If this image looks serene, that’s the exact word I’d use for this ethereal place – maybe one of the very best in the Pacific Northwest.

So, doing this made  me remember the history I have here. Many paintings of mine were painted here. THREE boats of mine have been purchased, restored, countless hours spent making them run and be safe – and decades of time has been used to get me (as a painter of nature) to places like this. When Shannon and Tina requested a couple of boats in this painting to show human interaction here, I realized I could put my own experiences in the painting.

So, classic wooden boat memories, all of them, here is “October” in the 1980’s. Then “Rumpuckarori” in the 1990’s. And finally “Sea Witch” in the 2000’s.

This image of Sea Witch, below, was actually taken at anchor right here in Snoring Bay, straight out front in the painting. These three boats undoubtedly helped make me the painter and person I am today. “October” got me to Alaska the first time, and another not shown got me to Mexico. Nancy and I lived aboard “Rumpy” during some of the best times for both of us, and there Nancy is in the cockpit of “Sea Witch”, below.

Thanks to Tina and Shannon from the help in making these paintings interesting and fun memories for me.

If you’re reading this on social media, I, Larry Eifert, paints and sails the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. My 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.

New Published Story, Published painting, Wildlife

Stubby Rose Anemone

This is another page from my 48 North magazine monthly story series and I’m getting these on my website so there’s a record. This was published last fall. These little efforts aren’t big wall murals or carefully thought out paintings, but more like the art I like to do on backcountry hikes – quick and dirty paintings that are really fun for me. Sketchpad and a pencil.

Below is the text that went with this. I try not to press down with too much science, but some of these monthly efforts are really interesting when I get into them, and just have to pass it on. Anemones are favorite critters of mine, and a good thing since there are many varieties here where I live in the Pacific Northwest. The closest anemone? Probably a half mile from where I write this.

Anemones are predatory sea animals named after land-based flowering plants of the buttercup family. They really do look like flowers! Some can move around, most remain anchored in one place, others float near the surface. Often, anemones line rocks, waving their stinging tentacles in search of passing prey. Many are solitary but some form groups, like a garden in spring. The stubby rose anemone has carved out a life of being mostly buried in sand and gravel, often with only its short tentacles exposed, looking like a 4” wide red or pink pin cushion. Anemones often live in close association with small crabs, fish or other animals to their mutual benefit, each helping the others is subtle ways. When we describe something as an animal, we usually think of cats or bats, deer or mice, but anemones really are animals.  

Muscles and nerves, stomach and mouth, arms and a column for a body – they’re like other animals in many ways. But anemones also have a few things most animals don’t have, like stinging tentacles that help subdue prey. The tentacles are armed with special cells that are defensive and also used to subdue prey. A tiny trigger hair, when brushed, sets off a harpoon that injects a lethal dose of toxin into the victim. Sometimes it’s another anemone and the battle can leave both injured. On a low tide, you can find these interesting animals, yes, animals, in gravelly sand, looking decidedly stressed they await incoming water to let it bloom again. Their stubby rose-colored arms are good descriptors, but there are also dozens of other anemones in the Salish Sea. The stubby rose has just recently been discovered to live here.

My model!

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.

Commissioned paintings, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Dugualla Flats Preserve

Just finishing up two new paintings for outdoor wayside exhibits at Whitbey Island’s Dugualla Bay Preserve.  This is another project for the Whidbey Camano Island Land Trust and, as always, it was a pleasure to paint for them.

This recently restored wetland is on both sides of a dike road a few miles north of Oak Bay. One side is fresh water, the other is a salt marsh salmon habitat area. First it was bay, then farmland with nature shut out. Now it’s back to nature. The bay side is very good forage fish and salmon habitat.

This first painting is the freshwater side, a rich habitat of cattails and critters from western toads to trumpeter swan – and I can’t say I’ve ever painted THOSE two in one painting before! The wetlands have water levels that rise and fall with the seasons and on a site visit a few months ago I took some reference shots, not very good as you can see, but somehow I built an interesting painting with what I had.

I started with a quick gesture drawing, a concept sketch showing cattails on the right, map and text on the left, maybe wildlife in the center. It’s sort of amazing to me that the final painting was very close to this.

Then a more refined drawing came with a better understanding how the wildlife fits in, getting their sizes and spatial separations set for a good piece of art. The toad couldn’t be down with the rest of them in the marsh since they’re up in the drier meadows, so I just floated it in midair – a toady blimp.

And this is how the final painting looks. Click on it to enlarge in your browser. These things are certainly not just a nice painting like my days of gallery painting. It takes a bunch of planning to get the other components to all fit.

It all came together with the text, a map I did in Illustrator using the National Park Service’s map software – and the text the Land Trust supplied me. Very skilled efforts go into doing text for these panels and these are really well written. Too many words it becomes a ‘book on a stick’ and no one reads it. Too few words and no one learns anything. And this type of art is all about learning something – which I hope you did with this blog. I hope you liked it.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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

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

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Swainson’s Thrush portrait

Sorry, this painting is now sold.

This painting is available and is part of my current series of wildlife portraits. Getting up close and personal with some of my friends around here.

Rose hips from Nootka roses are seemingly everywhere right now. It’s an important winter food for many birds during the colder winter months. Swainson’s thrushes are favorite birds here, but usually only in the summer. Here’s the thing: Swainson’s aren’t supposed to be here in winter, but I saw one around our little pond recently – which fits the fact that we haven’t had winter yet. Birds are opportunistic, and why endanger oneself flying south if it’s not really necessary. So here it was, staying put and deserving of a little portrait.

This is a framed acrylic original painting, 11″ x 14″ frame and painted on paper board. The painting itself is 7″ x 10″ and we’re offering it for $195, including the frame – plus a bit of UPS Priority shipping costs depending on your postal zone.

Thanks for reading this week. Just send me an email at larry@larryeifert.com if you’re interested in the painting.

Larry Eifert

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

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

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Jigsaw Puzzles, Murals, Wildlife

Great Salt Lake – a new jigsaw puzzle

A pallet full of new jigsaw puzzles arrived yesterday. This painting was commissioned by The Nature Conservancy for the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve in Utah, and now we’ve partnered with them to produce a puzzle of the image. The finished puzzle above is the very first one put together by Kody in Salt Lake City and the printing looks very good indeed.

Below is the box back has a species key like all the rest of our puzzles, and now there’s a reference poster inside the box. These are the new smaller boxes for easy storage and shipping.

This is the fifth new puzzle for us in the past few months, a serious leap of faith of the future. We could have bought a new car, but what the heck! We’re investing in us instead.

Thanks for reading.

Larry Eifert

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

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

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Varied Thrush portrait

This painting is sold.

Click on the painting to enlarge it. I like the textures on this one.

A little songster portrait today. This varied thrush painting is framed as you see it below in an 11″ x 14″ frame with acrylic plexiglass for easy shipping and less reflection than glass. The painting itself is 7 ” x 10″ on paper board and is $395 framed plus a bit of Priority Mail shipping depending on your zone.

We’ve watched countless families of varied thrushes raise their young here along our meadow’s edge. Varied thrushes are in the same family as robins, another singer of great ability, but the varied has a song like it came from a flute – as if Pan is out there drawing you to him with a tempting tune not yet played. There are other, lesser little notes you can hear if close enough, but it’s that single loud note that gets me every time. We hear them singing just at dusk in our patch of forest, and see them coming to the feeder near our pond. They’re what birds should look like, colorful and yet blending in with the forest bark and dark shadows. Once they land in the duff, they seem to just disappear.

Here it is matted and framed, definitely not invisible.

Thanks for reading this week. Just send me an email at larry@larryeifert.com if you’re interested in a nice Christmas present.

Larry Eifert

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

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

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.