Tag Archives: Deception Pass State Park

Interpretive Art, New Painting Post, Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

Hoypus Landing Wayside Panels

Recently finished some new art for wayside panels at Deception Pass State Park here in Washington State. I’ve lost count of the number of installations I have at this park, a dozen maybe, with a couple even having been washed out to sea in a storm last year.

These three are for a salmon habitat restoration project, which I’ve sure been painting a lot of recently. Washington is betting big on salmon restoration, spending billions (yes) removing road culverts, rock walls on the beaches, fixing it so young salmon and forage fish can have places to live. I seem to be THE guy for interpreting this, and have made dozens in the past few years. Here are three.

So, this place was once a ferry landing. It didn’t last long before the state built the nearby bridge, but in the process, the ferry landing really messed up the beach, making it difficult for fish to feel at home. So, fast forward a century, and Northwest Straits Foundation managed the removal of the mess, putting it back to as natural as possible. It was my job to show this.

This panel went to a similar messed-up beach just to the north of Hoypus Point, same reasons, same fish, but along a neighborhood of houses.

Here’s the result at Hoypus, the ferry landing road is now a trail, the beach put back to gravel and forest duff. The only man-made installation here now is going to be my panels.

Thanks to Lisa Kaufman from Northwest Straits Foundation (on the right of Nancy), and Joy Sullivan at the state park, for allowing me to paint yet more forage fish and my other favorite critters.

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.

Commissioned paintings, New Painting Post, New Published Story, Washington State Parks

Jr Rangers Art at Deception Pass

The Junior Ranger program is nationwide and in most National Parks. I’ve contributed to a few in the past, providing art for the activity books. If you don’t know, it works like this: your kiddo asks at the visitor center for the book, they fill out the fun pages of puzzles and questions, many requiring getting out in the park – then get the Junior Ranger badge when you turn it back in before you leave. It’s a big deal, with millions of kids involved. Now, a few of the bigger state parks are getting into the action, and I just finished some art for Deception Pass State Park here in Puget Sound. Here’s a link to the national program. https://www.nps.gov/kids/parks-with-junior-ranger-programs.htm

Deception Pass has many habitats, beach, dunes, old-growth forest, cliffs and freshwater lakes.
This page is about soil and the bacteria and fungi that live in it.
Cliffs near the bay have distinctive plants, like this gumweed.
Oystercatcher, orchre stars, clams and crabs are around the rocky tidepools.
Sandy dunes are shown here, with the San Juan Islands offshore.

This is the sixth project I’ve done for this park, a small place packed with beauty. It’s suffering from too many people and too much noise from Navy jets training right over the park, but I still like to make art about these places. It helps me connect to them. Good nature doesn’t always have to be wilderness.

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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, Waysides, Wildlife

Rosario Tide Pools

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.

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.