I just polished these three outdoor wayside panels for Washington State Parks. Soon they’ll be installed at Rosario Beach, Deception Pass State Park near Anacortes, right on the beach at one of the most heavily-explored tide pool areas in Washington. The three paintings tell the stories of how the tide works to create this amazingly rich ecosystem, how people messed it all up with boots and flip-flops – and finally how to walk here without screwing it up again.
I want to show you the third panel, the one about their rope path. These tide pools were decimated by thousands of feet, but the park stretched a yellow rope out to the best pools and signs (like this one) tell people to ‘Follow the Ropes”. It worked, amazingly enough, and the tide pool life returned – crabs and anemones, kelp and sculpins. It was such an easy idea, and now the place is returning to normal. Seeing this is one of the many reasons I still get a charge out of painting art for public places.
These panels are 36″ x 24″ and will be made of high-pressure laminate and probably last longer than I will.
I received some installation photos for my Lime Kiln Point Lighthouse paintings. Everyone seems to like them, so I thought I’d share it all here for the record. I painted these last winter for Washington State Parks with EDX Exhibits in Seattle. Installation and these photos were by Marius at Doty Signs in Seattle.
This lighthouse is THE place to watch orca whales up close in the wild. There’s possibly no place on Earth you can get closer to wild whales without getting on a boat, and in summer, people line the shoreline here to watch the killer whale families feeding on salmon right in front of them. This is a big deal since the southern population of orcas is endangered and it’s not looking good for a recovery. It’s a thrilling experience to see them, and I’m proud to say my stuff now explains what people are looking at. Plus, there are one or two really nice looking pieces of art!
This is sort of a big deal for me, too, as new rules don’t allow boats to approach these endangered animals, leaving Lime Kiln as the best viewing in the Northwest. It’s also a place I know well, since I had “October”, my 40-foot sloop tied in nearby Friday Harbor in the ’80s – my ‘painting platform’ as I sailed from San Diego to Alaska and most places in between. I have history here. Nancy and I, decades later aboard our 45′ floating home ‘Rumpy’ came by here one afternoon and watched in amazement as an entire orca family slowly swam directly beneath our boat (engine off). One of the big males was bigger than our boat, but they minded their manners and didn’t touch us.
A big flash of red, black and white – one of the most striking birds in North America. We see these guys often here in our forest on the northeast side of the Olympic Peninsula – two were actually on our tray feeder not long ago and they dwarfed the chickadees that fled as they landed.
To me, pileated woodpeckers represent my vision of old-growth forests and a time when there was much more of that around here. These are complex conifers, moss and ferns growing high on the trunks, a tangle of branches and twigs that took centuries to grow. I’ve tried to express that in this painting, as if we’re looking up a the tree, seeing a flash of bird and the feeling of bigness. Painting with some abstract qualities also helps, I think, and gives it a messy feeling – just the way nature is.
Most woodpeckers, but especially this one, drill holes in trees to find insects or create nesting sites for themselves. The holes then provide homes for many others, both birds and animals. These are truly important creatures for the health of a forest. You won’t find them in tree farms, just like you won’t find an elk in a cornfield.
This painting is now for sale. It’s framed and the outside measurements are about 20″ x 24″ matted and under glass for $295 total. The acrylic painting is on board and is 10″x14″, the glass is 16″x20″. We have this frame on it now, but others are available. Shipping is a bit more. Let me know if you’re interested at larry@larryeifert.com.
I’ve been painting imaginary scrapes of landscapes for a long time. I find it very rewarding to take a moment in time and build a little painting around it, a memory for me of ‘being there’. This one is actually a streamside rock pile up the Big Quilcene River on the Olympic Peninsula, Olympic National Forest. I remember, it was raining, had glistening rocks, lots of varieties of color and texture, a few bits of wood as well. It was near the old log bridge at Bark Shanty. These are cold waters, so I primed the board with Mars Red to give it all a warm cast.
The spotted sandpiper is the same, a nice memory for me of bumping into this little guy on a hike. They’re around most Western mountain streams throughout the summer, but head south to Argentina when the snow flies. You might normally think of sandpipers as birds that flock for safety, but this one is always singular. They poke around stream and lake shores, banks and beaches for lunch and have a curious habit of teetering up and down as if it’s lost its balance.
The first time I ever saw a spotted sandpiper was in the High Sierra. I was walking along a meadow bank beside the river above Tuolumne Meadows a few miles south of the campground. What a place! And here was a sandpiper, just meandering along and minding its own business as if I didn’t exist. It spent time, and so did I. Those memories make for good paintings, no matter if it’s decades later.
This painting is now for sale. It’s framed and the outside measurements are about 24″ x 20″ matted and under glass for $1295 total. Shipping is a bit more. Let me know if you’re interested at larry@larryeifert.com.
American dipper working the Upper Dungeness – but it could be any clean mountain stream hereabouts. A little space between projects, so I painted my favorite bird – John Muir’s favorite bird too. No secret why, this little bird lives where Muir felt most at home, and I do too – next to a clear rushing and wild bit of water in the high country. Dippers are so connected to this singular habitat that they’ll fly around a stream bend instead short-cutting across a meadow. ‘Dine in’ for a dipper means diving into a waterfall and walking around underwater, kicking stones around and eating insects.
Painting moving water is always a joy for me, but also has some mental anguish. It’s not easy to define what it looks like – something that is more a feeling than a fact. There is lots of bounced light, reflecting off the sky, nearby trees, sunny patches of moss that is getting direct sunlight. It’s not what I see, but more what I think I feel that is important. Did I get it on this one? I’m never sure.
I realized at the beginning that this would be a gray and green painting, cool colors. So, I started it by priming the board with Mars Red, a very brilliant purplish-red that you can see hints of all over the painting. Look carefully, you’ll see what I mean. It warmed the entire painting up a lot.
This painting is still for sale as of January 31, 2019. It’s framed as you see it here, outside measurements are about 20″ x 24″ and is $295 total, with shipping a bit extra. Email me at larry@larryeifert.com if you’re interested.
Sorry, this painting sold a few hours after posting.
El Malpais National Monument mural painting completed
I finished my El Malpais National Monument mural a few days ago. Of course they don’t know about it yet because the park staff is shutdown, but I thought I’d post it here to let everyone else know that artists don’t get sent home – we ARE home. Park staff isn’t getting paid, and neither am I.
Enough of that! The progressive steps of this painting are shown below, from the concept sketch created on location in Grants New Mexico, to the refined sketch and finally the painted version on top. Scroll to the bottom to see the chronological progression in reverse.
This painting shows the rather amazing and pristine high desert plateau landscape right on the Continental Divide in central New Mexico. This giant park has over 400 lava caves, ancient pueblo ruins, sandstone cliffs, vast lava flows, cinder cones and some of the oldest Douglas-fir trees on the planet. The painting shows most of these components, and also several cave entrances, bats emerging for the evening, a ringtail watching them pass. There are two tinajas, or waterpockets with frogs and others coming to drink after a hot day in the desert. This part is on sandstone, like the background cliffs. There are ancient junipers that were probably here 1000 years ago when the pueblo was occupied, and lots of pot shards are littering the ground. We saw all this, and much more I couldn’t get in while on our site visit last spring.
The design for the park’s map brochure.
This painting will be going to the main visitor center in Grants, but a larger copy with also be produced for an exhibit there. The real reason for this, however, is that it’s going on the back of the new park map brochure, so each year over 100,000 people get to take it home with them – along with this painting of mine. This part of the project is being produced by the excellent staff at the National Park Service’s Harpers Ferry Center in West Virginia. They always do great things with my paintings. I know the production will be top-notch.
Super-refined sketch prior to painting. This one was drawn in the studio here in Port Townsend and was the final draft before painting.Refined sketch number seven, also drawn on location.ELMA sketch #7
Above is the initial sketch photographed for big screen presentation at the park. I did this on the pavement at the hotel in Grants New Mexico, then loaded into my laptop and piped it onto the big screen for the park to see and comment on while I listened and wrote comments. This is sketch #7, the final one attempted and it was heartily approved. Even the superintendent was there, which is a rarity for me.
This was drawn on location, along with half a dozen others, but wasn’t a specific place. It has all the ‘elements of El Malpais, but doesn’t hold faithful to any ‘stand here and see this’ location. I think I nailed it pretty well.
I like this Chinook salmon painting but it’s going to change, so I thought I’d post it here so at least there’s a memory of it. What’s wrong with it, you ask, well, the National Park Service says it’s not fat enough! Welcome to MY life, and I guess I’d agree. They have some compelling reasons – so, back to the easel.
Here’s the entire fish. The final painting will go on one of seven waysides stands at the Dismal Nitch area beside the Columbia Estuary, part of Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. This is where ‘The Corps’, in 1804, spent a week hunkered down, starving, wet and miserable before a group of Chinook Indians paddled by and sold them some salmon. It’s a good story, and one I knew from my childhood when Virginia wrote a book about the wildlife and flora this bunch found and named, not to mention the Lewis River, Clark’s Fork and others. Now, here I am 50 years later painting exhibit art for the same place! The apples didn’t fall far from her tree, did they?
This painting of spawning salmon is one of over a dozen I’ve painted in the past couple of years, most for salmon restoration areas around the Salish Sea where I live. I’ve gotten much better at understanding these amazing fish and what they look like, how they live and suffer in their final days in fresh water. They feed us, they feed the riverside forest trees and all the creatures that live next to salmon streams. They’re not a gift to be taken lightly.
Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter. Larry Eifert
I’m a bit late on posting some of my 48 North magazine stories. Just too many interesting paintings happening that always seem more current. This one was the story pages back in August, so that meant I painted it in June. I promise, I’ll catch up to current soon.
And here’s just the art. It’s watercolor and pencil, brightened up with the computer before assembling the story with a readable font. I’ve tried this with my own lettering but it’s just not nearly as readable. 48 North magazine is here.
I did another plumose anemone story before this one. Here it is from 2027,
And here’s the story:
Plumose Anemone
Look down the closest piling at low tide and chances are good you’ll see these animals. Yes, they animals, animals that look like flowers. Animals with deadly stinging tentacles that can move around and even grab, kill and eat small fish. There are many species of anemones in the Salish Sea, some tiny inch-wide creatures that congregate in colorful crowds, others can be two feet tall. The plumose averages a respectful 12” tall and can have up to 100 tentacles that sting and grab any morsel that floats by. The meal, often microscopic, is then transferred down into a waiting mouth, throat and stomach to be consumed. Remember Little Shop of Horrors? This is an oceanic equivalent, except there are millions of them under our docks and floats. Low tide might expose them to air, in which case they sort of fold up like a deflated balloon and wait for the incoming tide.
Anemones can move about, leaving one spot behind when it senses danger or a lack of food. When it does, it simply walks off, but leaves behind some anemone DNA and from this a new anemone will grow. In summer, it also creates and releases sperm and eggs that drift around until ‘things happen’. This animal is well-armed, as I said. It possesses two types of stinging tentacles, the most common is for stinging prey, a second set is for defense. These can elongate 2 or 3 times their length and reach out to attach anything passing by – think stinging nettles on your favorite river trail. Others from inside the body can be shot through the body column or mouth to do the same attacking. Basically, this beautiful animal may look great but it’s a killer if you’re a small witless creature swimming past. So, here’s the drill: at low tide, put your stomach on the dock, peep down the piling well and have a look for yourself. You won’t regret it.
Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter. Larry Eifert
This painting is one of four for Lime Kiln State Park, west side of San Juan Island and Friday Harbor. If you want to see whales in the Northwest without getting on a boat, this is the place. Well, technically, you have to get on a ferry to get to the island, but you get the point. On a summer day, there can be hundreds of people lined up here on the cliff to watch the killer whale show right in front of them – and soon they’ll also be immersed in my paintings as well.
After adding the text to the panel, words and art go together fairly well on this one. Two panels are in the six-foot range, but this one is half that. The others are coming soon and I’ll try to post them as we go along.
I lived six summers in Friday Harbor when my first bigger boat, 40′ sloop “October” was here – and I had my gallery in Ferndale, Ca. This was in the 80’s, and I learned to paint the Northwest here. I’d go out to Lime Kiln Point and watch these big guys come right up to shore. Later, when Nancy and I lived on our 45′ Monk “Rumpy”, we’d come up from Port Townsend and lucky timing once put us here when an entire pod was too. We stopped the boat, turned off the engine and watched, shocked, as the entire family casually swam under us. The big male was bigger than the boat, or so it seemed. No one touched, we were thrilled, dry mouths and all. And now my art goes on shore. Paint hard, live long and connections like this happen all the time. I’m constantly thrilled at this life-long deep connection to nature. Not much matters more except the lovely person I share this with!
Thanks for reading my stuff this week. Larry Eifert
A new puzzle arrived for our local salmon restoration group and we high-jacked a few of them for us. I guess you could call it a ‘Limited Edition’. This non-profit puts restoration projects together with partners with funds to help Olympic Peninsula watersheds, and they’re just about the best bunch of folks we know around here.
Last year I did some art and designs for a series of wayside panels that completed a major habitat restoration in the estuary of Discovery Bay on the Olympic Peninsula (that’s the bay in the background of the puzzle). They decided that a jigsaw puzzle might be a perfect way to spread the word about this and raise some money. Very progressive attitude, and a perfect way to showcase some of this art. I did the design, and below is the box back – learn about salmon and restoration, all in one.
Here’s the box front. I used three paintings, melded them together and I think it’s a fairly difficult puzzle.
And below is one of the paintings installed. Thousands of salmon migration barriers are on streams and rivers in the Northwest. This project opened up two streams and help these fish return to spawn a next generation. NOSC removed 1900 tons of rock, 425 tons of contaminated soils, added 3200 feet of a community waterline and lots more. It was a big project – and I was proud to be a small part of it by providing some interpretive art. We also handled the fabrication and printing, all in a day’s work for me.
If you’d like a puzzle, you can order it here on our website. Or, call Nicole O’Hara at NOSC, (360) 379-8051 and get one as a donation to this great group. Then, if you’re local, get out here and have a look at all this.
Thanks for reading my stuff this week. Larry Eifert
