Tag Archives: Easel Paintings

Admiralty Head Lighthouse


It’s a traditional landscape this week!

The other day, while we were waiting for the Port Townsend – Keystone ferry on Whitbey Island, we walked over to take a few snaps of the nearby old Fort Casey batteries and this great old lighthouse. The lighthouse actually predates the surrounding fort by decades, having initially been built in 1861. It has to be one of most interesting lights on the West Coast with a sort-of Spanish look to it (although it was designed by a German). I really should have painted it looking seaward, because across the channel the Olympics, Point Wilson Light and Port Townsend create a vast and beautiful panorama, but I’ll leave that for another painting. Maybe a bigger canvas!

I’ve also been working on some larger “park” murals recently but have really enjoyed these smaller efforts on canvas. I’ll keep at it for awhile – it seems you all like them too.
This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame 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.
Email us for details.

To check availability of the other small originals I’ve blogged about the past few weeks, check the blog here.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Our Road

SOLD

Clicking the image should enlarge it for better viewing. If not, go to the blog here.

This week, it’s sort of a Hudson River School painting. Or it could be the 17th-century painter, Paul Rubens, didn’t paint landscapes as much as he painted people, but the colors and mood here are the same (at least that’s the way I see it). I learned early-on that painting dark colors and textural shadows around the edges helps brings the viewer’s eyes quickly to the center focal point – and away from the painting’s edges (where they just might wander off someplace else). I like all these textural effects, slamming wet and goopy paper towels, dry brushes and even the back of my hand into the canvas. The back of my hand: that part of my body has rarely been completely clean of paint now for decades.

“Our Road” is just that, it’s our street right in front of our studio. There are only three addresses on the entire stretch plus another that’s not legal, and it deadends into a saltwater swamp where there are more salmon then people. Hilton Avenue sounds pretty ritzy, but, hah, it’s just a little dirt lane the county sometimes thinks to grade (or not).

This painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.
Like last time, this one isn’t going on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

We’ll be gone to the mountains until Friday evening, but I promise to contact everyone who wants this in the order we received them.
Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Easy Trail

Easy-Trail-framed

SOLD

Level, easy and hopefully endless. Now, that’s my idea of a trail. It meandered through ferns for awhile, then came out into this glade filled with false lily-of-the-valley and scattered trillium. All these flowers had long faded, but no matter, it was just a nice place to be. Filtered sunlight came through the upper canopy, casting strong shadows behind the tree trunks. And, as usual for me, I thought this seemed like a good place for a painting.

So here it is – the Easy Trail. It’s always my hope that paintings, like photography, can bring something fresh to eyes that will never see it. It’s my joy to say that, indeed, I saw, and now you have too.

This original painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed. This is an original, not a print.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.

This one, like several others this month, won’t be listed on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

 

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Log Jam

If you click on the image, it should enlarge for a better view.

Someone called me to ask if these small paintings were actually prints. Nope, these are originals. We might make a few prints later, but these on the blog are the real-deal. I’ve always enjoyed doing these smaller studies and have painted thousands of them through the years.

This huge pile of cedar and hemlock trees, a log jam, was across the Nooksack River from a campground we stayed in. Placid water was there at the time, but I’ll bet the river that created this wood pile was something else again when the Nooksack built it. Imagine the power it took to pile these huge trees up against the shore. These log jams are now understood to be critical to healthy fish habitat in mountain rivers, and in some restoration projects, log jams are actually artificially created. On their upstream migrations to spawn, adult salmon rest under these branches and trunks, safe from predators. Young salmon and trout safely hang out here while they’re growing up and kingfishers sit atop the branches waiting for a smallish morsel to swim by.

As a painter, my eye was attracted to the color values and shadows. I liked the way the sun lit up the riverbed gravel with warm yellows and browns – and the way the cool blue foreground shadows colored the same gravel completely differently. Finally, I added the background log jam and standing conifers as the focal point shining brightly in full sun. So even if they’re a bunch of dead trees, this makes for a pleasing and complex composition, don’t you think?

This painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.

This one, like several others this month, won’t be listed on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

On the Trail to Lake Ann

SOLD

Last week we took our little ferry (locally named Bob, because that’s what it does best) over to Whidbey Island, then drove inland a couple of hours to the North Cascades and Mount Baker. This trail is so high it was still spring, with lupine, columbine and paintbrush everywhere. At one point, there was enough fireweed in bloom to make a scree slope completely magenta. We crossed a side creek by hopping rocks, and I stopped to take a reference snapshot of this scene looking upstream into the glacial bowl. The contrast between blue-sky reflection in the foreground, and the yellow sun-bounced light off distant trees makes for a very interesting scene, doesn’t it?

These little digital cameras have really improved how I can do these paintings. Before, I’d have to stop, pull apart my pack to get at my 35mm, go back and figure the shot out – and then wouldn’t know until I processed the film if the stuff was any good. Now, I pull the camera from my pocket and simply take a bunch of shots – and review them as I go (just like you do too). What’s interesting is that my painting process is still the same. The painting, the end result of all this, always looks very different from the beginning reference shot. I guess I’m not really trying to improve on nature, just rearrange it.

We liked this area so much, we’re going back this weekend for some more trail-miles. Might even result in another painting!

This painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
The gold frame makes it a total of $180 and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone or if you take the frame.
Email us for details.
This one isn’t going on the main website, but will be only on the blog.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently doing.

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Salmon Cascades – Olympic National Park

We were doing some research up the Sol Duc River, about 70 miles west of our home in Port Townsend. I was painting some images for Olympic National Park, and we stopped at the Salmon Cascades to see if any fish were there. They were – a group of coho circling below the falls waiting their moment when a big perfect jump would take them to the top and on to the rest of their journey to the spawning beds upstream. It was a thrill to see these big fish, and the scene with the sun shining through the water’s mist wasn’t bad either.

We have eight-color Giclee prints either unframed or framed, between $39.95 and $239.95 available of this painting and the original painting is available for $700 unframed. Email us.

Link here to the Salmon Cascades print on our website

Or, you can go to our Giclee Print Index here

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Lillian Ridge – Olympic National Park

Lillian Ridge Trail
To the west of Port Townsend, Olympic National Park fills our skyline. This trail begins at road’s end, over 6000′, at what we hear is the highest road in the state of Washington. It meanders along the ridgetop with amazing views on all sides for miles. To the east, the narrow chasm of Grand Valley shows hints of lakes and waterfalls. To the west, the Mt Olympus complex fills the view. This is Mt McCartney in the distance as one hikes south along the ridgetop spine, often through acres of endemic wildflowers.

This mountaintop has never been glaciated, so walking here means walking in the same footsteps as prehistoric man. I keep looking for mastodons, or at least their tracks.

We have eight-color Giclee prints either unframed or framed, between $39.95 and $239.95 available of this painting and the original painting is available for $700 unframed. Email us.

Link here to the Lilian Ridge print on our website

Or, you can go to our Giclee Print Index here

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

The Yellow Rowboat

The Yellow Rowboat
This boat, tied at the dock at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle’s Lake Union, is one of my favorites. What’s not to like. It’s all varnished, top to bottom, skeg to oars. The only paint is on the tips of the two oars that have been painted blue just where they’d touch water on each stroke. Very classy!

We have eight-color Giclee prints either unframed or framed, between $39.95 and $239.95 available of this painting and the original painting is available for $700 unframed. Email us.

Link here to the Yellow Rowboat print on our website

Or, you can go to our Giclee Print Index here

Or, send us an email to opt in or out of our email family – or just ‘talk’ with us.

Sol Duc Water

January 2009

Sol Duc Water
I’ve been painting a lot of the Sol Duc Valley for Olympic National Park. This painting was one was for me. It’s a very wet place, almost approaching to look of a temporate rain forest in places. These season waterfalls come and go, and I loved the water’s plunge over this little shiny rock.
Prints are available, as is the original painting. The painting is in acrylic on paper, and is 14″ x 20″. It’s offered for $350 on this blog, unframed.

Klahhane Ridge Trail

Klahhane Ridge Trail
Since this is currently covered with snow, I worked from photos I took last summer. This trail leaves the visitor center and heads along the south side of Klahhane Ridge. It’s still a place you might find mountain goats on occasion. Heading back at the end of the day, this scene is exactly the high mountain view one would expect here, with Mount Olympus rising to greet you at every turn.
As of the posting date, the original painting is still available and prints are too. Email us for details.
Painting is in acrylic, 14″ x 20″, making it about 24″ x 30″ framed with mat or linen liner.