Tag Archives: Easel Paintings

New Painting Post

American Dipper 4

Dipper-4

This ORIGINAL painting is  acrylic on linen canvas, 16″ x 20″ and $190 unframed.
This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

    Long ago, I saw some paintings of a South American rain forest. I have no idea who the artist was, but they were moody, dark, ethereal – and had this ‘feeling’ about them that a painter can only get if they’d actually been to a place like that. And it’s not just going there, but they would have to really get to know a place, not just how it looks, but WHY it looks the way it does.

    I think that way about this painting. If just feels like it really was. We’ve spent a spring and summer doing a lot of hiking, more than normal, and much of it has been beside these pure, ethereal and pristine Northwest rivers that are unlike any others I know. The water is often blue-gray because of ice melt far upstream, streamside moss and salmonberries are sculptured gardens of lush green and fresh life – never dusty and tired-looking. And that little dipper. It just keeps reappearing in these paintings, over and over, the symbol of wilderness and these Northwest waters.

    Last week Nancy and I backpacked into Royal Basin in the Olympics – the epitome of these types of landscapes. For over six miles we hiked beside the Dungeness River, then Royal Creek, never out of earshot of its roaring and rumbling as it dropped through the canyon. We broke the climb up into two sections and camped so near the creek that all night I thought I heard voices – well, I guess I did if you consider rushing water to have a voice. The river-talkers were almost too loud at times.

River-camp

Towards the top, Royal Lake appeared, encircled by some of the highest peaks in the Olympics – and we were the only ones camping here. Somehow, this dipper painting needed to be posted afterwards. So I did!

Royal-Lake-and-Mt-Fricaba

Thanks for reading this week. There’s an album of these trip hikes on my Facebook fan page.
Larry Eifert

Here’s the blog on the web.  And 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 beautiful photographs

And Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Gallery Nine Show in Port Townsend

Eifert_Union_Wharf_Gulls

“Gulls at Union Wharf” is an acrylic painting, 14″ x 20″ on board and offered custom framed for $795. This is part of my show opening September 7th in Port Townsend at Gallery Nine. Email me if you’re interested.

Gallery Nine in Port Townsend is where both Nancy and I show. It was just voted best art gallery in our county (and that includes Mount Olympus and the Blue Glacier).  It’s not the first time. In fact, by my count, Gallery Nine has won that award four out of the last five years, and I think for good reason. It’s a happy, fun and fairly prosperous place considering it’s remote location, and the wine and goodies at the monthly gallery walk aren’t bad either.

 

This original painting has been in our collection for awhile now, but it’s time to let it go. This was our boat for over a decade, and I did some major restoration on her. It’s a somewhat historic boat with a nice pedigree, and I still miss it. The painting was actually to commemorate the new sails we just bought. Notice the new sail ties, the pure whiteness of the main (soon to change after some use and stress). They match the color of Nancy’s hair that is just barely visible through the open hatch (that got that way by use and stress).

 

I’ll be in the Wooden Boat Festival this coming weekend with our new boat, a Lightning named Thriller, and the gallery show opens on Saturday evening from 5:30 to 8pm with wood-turner Chuck (CW) Stern. Come down for both and say hi and help me sell out the show on its opening night. I’ll be on the boat most of the weekend.

 

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

Here’s the blog on the web.  And 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 beautiful photographs

And Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Dipper Bobbing – Dungeness River

American Dippers cannot seem to just stand there, but have to constantly bob up and down. This one was at the bottom of the bob.

I just have this thing for American Dippers and clear, rushing little waterfalls. So here’s another painting of my favorite little bird, mainly because we’ve seen many of them on our recent summer hikes. Dippers were also John Muir’s favorite bird. He said it was because they only live along the cleanest mountain streams and represented what’s best about American wilderness. They never stray from rushing water. Given a river bend, dippers will fly the long route around instead of short-cutting across the neck. They build nests of moss and twigs behind waterfalls, so the chicks are wet from birth. Now here’s the best part: dippers feed by jumping into the water, sometimes barely above freezing, and with wings open for balance, they just walk around underwater kicking over stones looking for aquatic insects to eat. It’s as if they’re oblivious to the fact it’s water at all. They can jump into a huge current, and then appear someplace completely different, at home just ‘ambling around’ underwater. Pop, they’ll just jump out of a pool and sit for a moment on a log, just like this painting shows, seemingly without a drop of water on them. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve never seen a dipper actually shake off water.

 Here’s where I saw this little guy, the Dungeness River up in the Buckhorn Wilderness, featured today on the Wild Olympics website and just 20 miles from home. It’s the second steepest river in America, falling 7700 feet in just 28 miles.

 

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $145 unframed.
This custom frame (sorry, color seems a bit off in the photo) with a linen liner makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print. I have other frames of various styles too.
Email us for details.

Sorry, but it’s sold.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Here’s the blog on the web.  And 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 beautiful photographs

And Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Dipper Fishing – A new acrylic painting on canvas

SOLD

We’re soon off for a field trip to Sitka, Alaska for field research, but I wanted to post one last painting before we left. It’s one of those I delight in painting – a little corner of nature involving the reflective quality of water in motion.

The motivation for this painting came at a trail head in Olympic National Park when Nancy spied a sign telling of an American Dipper research project going on there, and that we were to watch out for dippers with leg bands – and armed with which color banding, if it’s on the left or right foot (THEIR left and right, not OURS – it said that), we were to call someone and tell when what we saw. Have you EVER tried to watch a dipper. They sit still for about a microsecond, bouncing up and down, and never very close to you. So I did a dipper painting without a leg band!

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $145 unframed.

The color’s a bit off, but this shows the custom frame with a linen liner that would make it a total of $170 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Or click here to follow me on Facebook. I post lots of other stuff there.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

A Light in the Forest

“Light in the Forest” is an original acrylic painting on canvas, 24″ x 48″. This started with the reference sketch that I made at Sol Duc Valley in Olympic National Park. A droopy trillium flower, a few non-flowering False Lily-of-the-Valley plants, some sword ferns – but I liked the idea of a big shaft of bright sun illuminating a lush springtime old-growth forest. I think I need to work on this just a bit more, but I’m close to getting there. It may be a tad over the top with details, but I couldn’t help but to add a calypso orchid, just because it’s my favorite forest flower – and a Pacific wren, one of my favorite forest birds. These little guys are only about 3 inches long, yet sing an astoundingly-loud sizzling song that seems to go on forever. The poor little bird had its name changed a few years ago when some new genetic testing reveled the birds here on the West Coast are different than the eastern birds. No respect!

This is the original painting, NOT a print. If you’re interested in purchasing this, email me.

We’re offering “Light in the Forest” for $1700 with our custom-built hemlock frame. Shipping will add a bit more, but since it’s on canvas, it’s light. Other frames are also available.

Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to. Or follow me on Facebook here.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Rialto Beach from Hole in the Wall

This may not quite be finished, but I thought I’d post it anyway. It always helps for me to see it on a small screen – helps me sort of what’s wrong. I’ve had two weeks of replacing windows, doors and decking (LOTS of decking) here at the Lodge, so there hasn’t been much time for the paint brush.

The sea stacks at Hole in the Wall have been photographed and painted by just about everybody, probably including George Bush (if you haven’t seen his paintings on the web, you’re missing seeing his true calling. I especially like the self-portrait in the shower?!!?). But, I’VE never painted them, so here goes. While this amazing stretch of roadless beach can be a very hairy place when a big sea is running and the tide is high, a few times when we’ve been out there it’s been just like this – so calm you could launch a rowboat. Truly sublime. And where’s Hole in the Wall? It’s actually beneath the feet of the viewer. There’s a high-tide trail that snakes over the cliff, and from its top this spectacular view presents itself.

And here’s the scene from the south. You can see Hole in the Wall to the right that some say also looks like an elephant’s head, the trunk is created by the hole. It’s a local favorite place for us, and most everyone else on the Olympic Peninsula that likes wild beaches.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 20″ x 40″ and is offered for sale. It’s destined for a gallery, but if you’re interested, please email us for details.

AND, a few of you caught my mistake (yes, I admit it) a few weeks ago when I was blogging about my James Pond painting. I mistakenly said James Pond was on the Hoh River, but it’s really on the Quillayute River, just a couple of miles from this new painting. I knew that, but somehow the fingers typed Hoh. Happily, the buyers of the painting didn’t notice, but a few of you sure did, and I’m just happy someone reads this stuff. And, even better, no vampires from the Twilight Gang showed up to argue the issue.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Meadow Fawns

Another of my recent “Meadow Herd”, this one was painted from a reference photo from a year ago – but both are still here. This week we’ve seen several females vanish from the backyard-bunch. I’m thinking they’ve found a quiet place to birth the next batch of fawns, and hopefully we’ll see the results soon. One was looking like a definite candidate for twins. The two in the painting are still in the meadow, grown but not willing to take on the big guys for space at the food dish. In fact, there’s a big buck with infant antlers that actively chases them away, snapping like a dog at their hind legs. Yesterday, another buck with budding antlers was eating from the dish while I held it, and that was maybe too close for my comfort zone. A big animal, and I kept remembering a story from Yosemite a few years ago where a buck actually killed someone. While they’re fun to have around, they ARE wild animals.

 

And here’s one of the twins a year later, taken just yesterday. Just growing out of its winter coat, he’s looking a tad shabby. Yes, that’s a backyard swing. It hangs on a big horizontal branch of a big-leaf maple that’s 30-feet up. Quite a swing-g-g-g-g-g.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $140 unframed.
A custom wood frame makes it a total of $170 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print. I can email you a photo of the frame if you’d like.
Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Point Wilson Commissioned Painting

(click the image and it’ll enlarge in our browser.)

Yes, I still occasionally still do commissions – if they’re fun and challenging., I’m most interesting in a life that’s stuck out there a bit, so I still look for challenges. One doesn’t have a past like mine, of climbing mountains and sailing to the Sea of Cortez and Alaska, of trying to make a living from my paintings and all the rest without realizing there should ALWAYS be challenges – and the bigger the better. We were talking with an old friend the other day: “what are you doing” “As little as possible” was her response. I mean, what the heck sort of life is THAT? If I EVER say that, just shoot me (metaphorically-speaking, since I don’t believe in guns).

So, I was approached by a very nice woman who’s a ‘lifer’ here in Port Townsend. She lives right in town in the same house she and her husband bought in the 1950’s! Many afternoons she heads for Point Wilson Lighthouse nearby for her exercise – goes down the beach in her blue sweats, around the light and up the hill. She showed me photos that her husband took many decades ago of the cypress trees on that hill, and, so, would I be interested in painting something that she could look at on days she doesn’t walk. Point Wilson, Mount Baker, Mount Shuksan, and maybe ME sailing in Sea Witch. I couldn’t resist.

Here’s my reference photo, five photos crammed together to help me figure it out. The mountains weren’t ‘out’ that day, but I had other references for that part. For the many that read my blog but aren’t Northwesterners, this spot is at the north end of Port Townsend in Fort Worden State Park. It’s where the waters of the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound converge – and has a mile-long sand beach on one side, a rocky cliff beach on the other. I’ve painted many images here. 24″ x 48″ acrylic on canvas.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

Old Buck

“Old Buck” is the fourth of my “Meadow Herd” paintings. This old guy has been here the longest of all our current dozen Columbian black-tailed deer. In fact, as I write this he’s here right below the back deck. This was painted from a reference photo I took last summer when he had his  horn-hat on, since currently there are only little knobs showing where this year’s antlers will be. I took the photo when he was all excited about a female prospect (who denied him and ran off into the forest seeming either laughing or in a panic to get away, or so it seemed) and I thought he had this look of pure softness, like he was pleading with her for acceptance. I’ve practiced this pose myself, by the way, but rarely need to resort to it!

These deer, Columbian black-tailed, are a subspecies of the more common western mule deer, and are smaller by far – but you’d never know it standing next to one. When a male puts his mule-shaped Roman nose out, he becomes a fairly daunting creature. That ‘look’ doesn’t happen until they’re a couple of years old, and when it does you can really see the genetic closeness to the ‘mulies’.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $120 unframed.

The custom wood frame makes it a total of $140 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post

More Paintings of Our Black-tails

Last week I posted a painting of one of our backyard Columbian Black-tailed Deer. Remember: Apple Please? This week I’m showing two more. (Sorry, but the little fawn above was taken quickly and isn’t available.)  A year ago we had two does that birthed three fawns. There was another mom that showed up occasionally with twins too, and one afternoon they were all here at once: three moms with FIVE fawns! It was crowded, but everyone seemed to get along Okay – but what do we know. The more I watch them, the more I see the social life of these guys seems very complex.

 

This painting is of the dominant doe that’s been here for years – the mother of the fawn above.  She has this look! See the way she just pierces you with that blank stare? She’s checks out the house, circles around it to find out where we are – which room we’re in, then comes right up to one of our big windows where she gives us the ‘stink eye’ for a handout. No movement, no blinking, no acting coy or cute, she just stares until you give in. Cats do this, we know (boy, do we know), but a 160 lb deer doing it is something else again. And Nancy gives in pretty quickly: “okay, okay, meet me at the back door” and it’s as if the deer understands completely. Back door it is!

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.

I have a nice gold frame on it for an upcoming  gallery show, which makes it a total of $160 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you want to take the frame. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

 

Thanks to everyone who have been buying my new Virginia Eifert Kindle books. Amazon doesn’t give me a list of buyers, but lots of people are rediscovering her work – including me. Three up, seventeen to go.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

Click here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.