Tag Archives: Acrylic Painting

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Under the Maple – an acrylic painting

A very personal painting for me, as these birds live with us in our little meadow here. I know them well.

Varied Thrushes are cousins to  American robins, which we also have. They’re at home on the ground in the forest, kicking leaves around looking for insects or berries – while robins tend to live in the open. We have many of these guys right here in our little patch of forest. In Fall through Spring, they can almost disappear when the maples and alders drop their leaves and look exactly the same camouflaged colors. The trillium in bloom shows it’s spring, the big-leaf maple leaves haven’t decomposed yet from last fall, the birds are brighter than normal sporting their breeding colors. I couldn’t resist putting it all together to make a painting based on a Mar’s red base color.

Here’s the link for the little 4-minute video I made about my process.

There wasn’t a sketch for this – I just started painting but with some clear ideas of composition. Here are the two reference photos I took not 100 feet from my studio.

At our place, trilliums tend to group together. I understand ants disperse the sweet seeds pods, so maybe ours are just lazy.

In the trillium reference, you can see dozens of alder catkins on the ground – it’s spring! As I progressed with this, I took a progress photo. No sketch, it helps me to see how it’s going if I look at it on a device, even my phone. In some ways, I like this version as well as the final painting.

This painting is 18″ x 24″ acrylic on canvas, and is available. Email me if you’re interested at larryeifert@gmail.com.  It’s available with the nice Taos school inspired frame and I already have a shipping crate ready to go.

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

I’ve been adding new videos to my YouTube Channel here. Most are about my painting process, shot in my studio.

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, National Park Service, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Ruddy Turnstones – Spring Migration

This painting is for sale, so drop me a note at larryeifert@gmail.com if you’re interested. Click the image and it should enlarge in your browser.

This is an original acrylic painting on canvas, 30″ x 40″.  $3600 framed. A Certificate of Authentication is included. Outside dimensions with the frame is about 36″ x 46″ and it’s not going to be framed in a cheapy frame, but one suitable for galleries. Frame options are available. We have a double-boxed professional box for this to ship with and shipping will be charged at cost.

I like to tell stories in my paintings. This one started that process when I walked out to the end of the local marina’s commercial dock and was greeted by almost 100 chattering little birds, turnstones, resting from days of migration. They fly at night for safety, rest and gossip during the day. But, I also saw them a year before on an April backpack around the Ozette Triangle Trail in Olympic National Park. I saw many sandpipers on the low-tide beach rocks just at dusk – just before they all took off in a whoosh and headed north. Sorting through photos, I ran across these trip photos and found this one, which became the rocks in the painting. It was all I needed to get the project going.

Here’s my little talk about making this painting.  It’s on my YouTube Channel along with several others.

My first-draft concept sketch. I put the grid lines in to help redraw it on the canvas.

And I’m currently putting this white-silver frame on it, but we have other styles available.

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.

Early Paintings, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Bewick’s Wren beside our porch

This is a new painting, and it’s sold.

We live in a forest, beside a meadow. Every time I leave the house, go down the back steps on my way to the studio, I see a little flash of tail scurry by – swish, and it’s gone. It’s like a mouse, but with wings. I think this little Bewick’s is a pretty good reason to live here and I’ve painted images of them often. After getting bird drawn, I simply went a few feet from my studio steps, snatched up a fern frond and grabbed a bit of branch the last storm blew off one of the alders. Right there, the makings of ‘still life with little bird’, a painting was born.

I’ve always painted this way, taking careful notice of what’s around me, piecing together a design and putting it down on paper. I can do this at my home or in some alpine meadow, and it always seems to give me a thrill to see it come to life.

Here’s one of the oldest efforts I have record of doing this routine. Someone sent me this painting from 1979. What was with all that black? I don’t even own a tube of black paint today. I don’t have the foggiest idea, but this has been a long journey of trying things out, refining my efforts and trying to make each one better. This little hummingbird painting is 41 years old now! It was painted in opaque watercolor, a paint I worked with for a couple of years while trying to figure out how to use this stuff most call kid’s poster paint.

And just one more showing a section of this new painting – I have improved a bit. Maybe.

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

Harlequin Ducks – Dark Pool

You’ll see I enjoy painting water, figuring out how motion looks in a stop-action moment as it falls over a rock or crashing onto a shoreline. Harlequin ducks evidently like it too, because you’ll never see these guys anywhere but around water. In winter they’re on saltwater, in summer they migrate up into the mountains to nest in streamside tree cavities. In the Olympic Mountains near where we live, I’ve seen them sleeping on river rocks, the water roaring around them. They seem to enjoy the most whitewater available, because I’ve often seen them riding the waves downstream. I’ve read that Harlequins often break bones doing this, and they often heal in badly misshapen ways – but they still do it.

I last saw one of these beautiful ducks up Heather Creek, a fork of the Olympic’s Dungeness River at a stream crossing. The duck was next to my ‘bridge’, a log jamming up the river’s passage. She was sitting on the bank under some willows, and I blundered out of the forest right next to her.  I stopped, grabbed my point-and-shoot. She looked up at me, then just ignored my presence as she studied the stream for small fish. 

What really got to me was the seeming frailty of this little creature, a small duck the size of a shoebox, alone here,  by herself in the wilderness and intent on making a living. Here I was, an old guy intent on staying alive so I could come back to these places as many more times in my remaining years as possible, just happy to be standing right next to this beautiful animal. She had no idea, of course, of her importance – which continues here.

This painting is now for sale. It’s framed and the outside measurements are about 20″ x 24″ matted and under glass for $3450 total for both frame and painting. The acrylic painting is on board and is 10″x14″, the glass is 16″x 20″. We have this frame on it now, but others are available. Shipping is a bit more. Let me know if you’re interested with an email at larry@larryeifert.com. 

Thanks for reading this week. Oh little duck, where are you today?

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.

Giclee prints, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Dipper and Misty Waterfall Painting

This painting has been a work in progress for long enough, so  I thought I should offer it here to end my fussing with it.

These little seasonal streams are everywhere in the Northwest, and you can’t hike too far without seeing a few. I like them, each one different, and American Dippers also like them possibly because they’re less dangerous than big and more powerful waterfalls that can crush little birds. I read that harlequin ducks who share these same habitats have been found to have many healed broken bones from crashing about underwater in these streams. It’s probably the same for smaller dippers.

I like the textures in this painting, so maybe that’s why I kept it around, making it more textural, then less, then – oh just sell it. Like the painting process, nature is messy, until you understand it, and in this case the way ferns and saxifrige leaves all jumble together, each staking claim on a momentary bit of sunlight streaming through the canopy. When the light finally does penetrate all the way to the forest floor, it’s like a brilliant spotlight is highlighting an actor in a play.

This painting is acrylic on board and is 11″ x 14″.

I have a scan that can make a high-quality print up to 32″ x 42″ on canvas. 

And currently, it’s framed as you see it here under glass in a wood frame. Outside dimensions are 20″ x 24″. It’s acrylic on board, so it might not need the glass.

Dipper-Misty-Waterfal-framed

Price for this painting FRAMED as you see it is $295, about 40% less than gallery price. Shipping would add a bit more. 

Email us at larry@larryeifert.com. 

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com, down the right side of the home page.

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.

Nancy Cherry Eifert, New Painting Post

A Chickadee and Blueberries – From Nancy

A new painting from Nancy, a tasty study of a chickadee and blueberries after an early frost. We have both the bird and berries right here in our meadow (along with an occasional frost), and the copper leaves this time of year make a nice painting. These little birds don’t eat the berries, instead, they hop around gleaning the insects and spiders that live among them.

This is new: We’re expanding the blog to also show Nancy’s paintings and photographs, as well as some other things going on here. Over the years, I’ve posted upwards of 500 of these pages. My new paintings will still be here as usual. Nancy’s painting style is reminiscent of mine, probably because we share a studio and she paints on some of my big paintings from time to time. Or, maybe it’s the other way around, I paint like Nancy.  While she has her own website at NancyCherryEifert.com, this blog has a nice readership – so I thought it would be meaningful to share what we do. This chickadee seems a good start. we both hope you like it.

Here’s the framed painting, photographed not 50 feet from the blueberry model it was painted from. These mountain blueberry leaves go from green to a pale yellow in fall, then immediately turn these bronze colors in a real show of color

This painting is available for sale. It’s framed like it shows here and the outside measurements are about 12″ x 15″. The acrylic painting is on board and is 6″x 9″.  It’s matted and framed under glass. Framed just as it looks here, it’s $175 plus some Priority Mail shipping. Just let us know if you’re interested by emailing us at either nancy@nancycherryeifert.com, or larry@larryeifert.com.

Thanks for reading this week.

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, Wildlife

Pileated Woodpecker

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. 

Sorry, it’s now sold.

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

Spotted Sandpiper

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. 

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.