Tag Archives: Exhibits

New Life for an Old Painting – Arcata Marsh, CA

Arcata-MarshIn the 1990’s I was commissioned to paint this wildlife mural for the City of Arcata, California’s marsh project. A fairly innovative idea at the time, they were using old log sorting ponds to purify their sewer water, using them for settling ponds. Of course, being Arcata which is mostly Humboldt State University, it involved wildlife, and lots of it – and so a visitor center was built and this painting is an exhibit there, but it’s inside the building.

Now, two decades later, they’re using the same image as their entrance sign at the gate, so I did a redesign last week and it’s at the fabricator now. This simply wouldn’t have been possible back when I first painted the image, but nowadays I can digitally create this huge sign, send it off over the cable – and soon this beautiful,  6′ x 6′ and 3/4″ thick, it’s going to be made out of something like Formica – with a life span longer than I’ll be alive.

Arcata-marsh-installed

Of course, this is all possible because I retained the copyrights to this painting, so when Denise at the Marsh wanted to do this project, she needed to come to me. It’s a way we working artists make a living. I only signed away the rights to one large painting – the first one I ever did for the National Park Service at Redwood National Park. It ended badly, with me having to actually buy my own posters from the parks’ bookstores and not even having a digital copy of it to put on my website. A cautionary tale, don’t you think?

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.

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.

Some Small watercolors for the Whidbey Island Land Trust

Guillemot

I’ve been working away at some fairly large and complex murals for the Whidbey Island Land Trust project, but the project also involves a bunch of these smaller and fairly loose acrylic wash/pencil sketches – so I thought I’d pass them around. Fairly loose; I know some of you will say they’re not loose at all. But for what I normally do, they’re pretty loose. There are about 40 of them, and these are some of the finished ones. That’s a pigeon guillemot on the top, here’s a coyote below, and a little gallery of some more. Fun to do these loose images after plugging away of some pretty details larger painting.

Coyote

These will all go below the larger paintings on wayside panels, spicing up the educational components of these outdoor exhibits. Yes, pencil and acrylic! 

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.

Sugar Pine Point – Lake Tahoe and Climate Change

General-Creek-2014

Some years ago I was commissioned for two paintings of Sugar Pine Point State Park, a park that has two miles of Lake Tahoe’s forested coastline and one of the most pristine creeks to enter that lake. Fun project, I got to go there and poke around. The images were eventually made into outdoor wayside panels, and the originals are in the visitor center – pretty typical. We made lots of book store products from the images, and now the poster of General Creek has been redesigned and will soon be available.

For me, the real story is on the poster’s backside, and it’s possibly more important than first version the first time around. I rewrote the essay, and I was struck how the theme, the story, the very reason for this poster and painting has changed in just one short decade. I finished it up, sat back and breathed a ‘WOW’ to myself. Here’s the thing. The original essay spoke of each of the critters, plants and everything else that lives here as being no more important than any of the others. That’s nature’s way, after all. And it went on to say humans were no better nor worse too.

And the updated text? It now speaks of human-caused Climate Change, proving I was wrong about that last sentence. Nature will survive here, of course, but in what form we can’t yet say. Will this ecosystem still be in harmony with itself? I suspect not. Will General Creek, the main focus of this painting, still be flowing in summer when the critters need it most? Doubtful. We just don’t know, but we can guess. In my final statement, I say this: Climate Change is now effecting this landscape, which will alter what we see here in many ways – and add to the stress on a fragile place. In the future, this painting of General Creek may become a historic record of what once was.

Eifert_General_Creek
The original wayside panel beside General Creek.

All of a sudden I realized that all these large-scale murals I’ve been creating for the past several decades might become something more than their original intent. I thought they were painted to educate people about what’s here. As human-caused climate change evolves, now I see these images might be about what once was. A scary thought, for sure, but maybe one that’s more valuable and long lasting.

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.

Crater Lake NP New Puzzle Has Arrived

Whitebark-Pines-of-Crater-Lake-1000pc

Yesterday we received a shipment of new puzzles for spring. This is the first 1000-piece puzzle we’ve produced in years, and it’s fun for us to see the bigger image, bigger box, bigger everything. Finished size is 20″x 28″, it has an interlocking border, and it includes a reference poster inside. You can order it here.

Eifert-Crater-1000-boxback

The box back, with lots of great info and species key.

Eifert-Crater-1000-boxtop

We’ve also included a free poster with reference key and a bunch of information about the whitebark pines at Crater Lake that are in serious trouble due to Climate Change, an introduced pathogen and the ravages of bark beetles. It’s our way to cram some great interpretation and nature into one product – and it should also be a fun one to put together. Below is the poster that comes with it.

Whitebark-Pine-Crater-Lake-box-insert

Order this puzzle simply by clicking here to go to our cart. $18.95 plus shipping at our cost.

This was funded by the good folks at Crater Lake Institute and Foundation. Thanks, Ron. I think it’s a great puzzle.

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.

A New Old Poster – California Coast Redwoods

 A new 18″ x 24″ poster – coming soon!

Cal-redwoods-poster

Click all these to enlarge them in your browser

Thousands upon thousands of the original poster “Events in the Life of a Coast Redwood” have gone out the door over the past twenty years. Originally commissioned as a museum exhibit for Redwood National and State Parks, the painting lives it’s life in Prairie Creek, just the best redwood forest I’ve ever known. There’s a lot of art and photography here in our studio, and many of these past images go out of print, out of our lives – but we felt this one deserved a continued  present, so this week I redesigned it to look more like an old botanical poster someone might have created 200 years ago when redwoods hadn’t even been discovered by Europeans yet. You’ll see this in a month or so after the printer does his job.

bottom-section

The story of how this originally came to be is somewhat fun – at least for me. In the 1990’s I was living in Ferndale, Cal just north of one of the biggest redwood parks. I always tried to be a thorn in the side of a local timber-killing company, always looking for ways to counteract their lying press releases ranting on about how wonderful they were in eliminating the world’s tallest trees – our heritage being made into hot tubs. (My real thorn was the fact I had hired the wife of the CEO to work for me in my gallery, and he thought we were having an affair – used to sneak around in the alley watching her.) Anyway, that company put out a poster much like this – tree in the center, but instead of nature they showed little images of subjects like Joan of Arc, Hitler, the atom bomb, Christ on the cross – stuff completely unrelated to redwoods.

So, I was dared to challenge it with a poster of my own – and got Redwood National Park to pay for it, and off we went. My poster was meant to show the rich diversity in redwood forests, something the redwood choppers denied (we need to get rid of those old, stagnant forests), and put them in a context with humanity as well as ecological history (something they also denied the existence of). Fast forward: the company crashed, people are now out of work, I get mail thanking me for standing up for something few believed in at the time. Ah, it’s all in a day’s work for the naturalist-artist!

side-section

I’ll let you know when this is available in most large redwood parks – from Redwood National to Muir Woods –  and on our website.

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.

Powell Butte Mural Installation in Portland, OR

final mural

Click the image and it should enlarge. Photo by Linda Repplinger – thanks Linda

 I completed this painting last year, and last week received a photo of the installation from Linda, Senior Designer at Sea Reach, ltd in Sheridan Oregon, who is doing all the great interpretive exhibits. I think it turned out pretty well. The original task here was to show the Portland Water District’s watershed, from the Cascades all the way downstream to downtown Portland – water pipes, gate valves, Bull Run Lake – the works (waterworks). Somehow it turned into an enormous vista, pieced together into 12 panels in high-pressure laminate that are all meshed together. Portland, 16,000 feet up! I remember getting the idea while flying back from California on a plane and looking down as we went past. If you look at the door on the right you’ll get a scale of this thing.

Bethlayne Hansen

photo by Bethlayne Hansen – Willamette Week

And the building? It’s on top of Powell Butte on the eastern side of town, east of I-405. Powell Butte has now been hollowed out and the two gigantic covered reservoirs built inside it will hold 100 million gallons of Portland’s water – no pumps, all gravity feed. There’s a nature park on top, with trails and this new visitor center, shown here under construction back in October.

2013-10-03_Powell-Butte

I like nothing better in life than a bit of adventure, figuring out how to do something I’ve need done – or even considered. Someone asked me when I was going to retire. Ha! I think the word RETIRE is shorthand for REALLY TIRED, and I’m sure not that  yet. I just want to stay relevant, to continue to contribute and not get left behind as the rest of life moves always onward past me. Give me more amazing projects like this and I’ll be a happy painter. Currently I’ve got my mitts into several amazing bids for some large (and confounding) paintings – so let’s see if they happen. Stay tuned!

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.

Yellowstone Whitebarks – Closing In

Progress-5

I’m closing in on completion of this current project, Whitebark Pines of Yellowstone. You can see the progress over the past few weeks here in other posts. Hey, this painting has it all: charismatic mega fauna including that emblem of Yellowstone, the griz, giant mountains, hot springs, wolverine, elk, wolves and even a lynx. All those I rarely get to plop into one painting, so it’s been a treat. Still working on the grouse, aspens and a bunch of details, so stay tuned for the next round within a week (because I have another one charging right behind).

    As I wrote before, this painting is supposed to illustrate the Climate Change disaster that’s occurring in Yellowstone. Bark beetles, blister rust, warmer winters with less snow, drier summers and lots of other factors are creating real havoc in this amazing place. Most of the critters and trees in this painting will probably end up missing from this great park – and I’m not at all happy to say it was us, all of us, that did this.

    But for now, I’ll finish the painting right after I go get some gas for the car.

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.

A Fantastic Finish for Sitka

Sitka-estuary-painting-vs2

Last week I finished up my painting for Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska.  I think it hits the mark pretty well. I was tasked with showing the relationships between spawning pink salmon and the forest around Indian River, right in the town of Sitka. The park actually surrounds this Estuary. Essentially it’s the story of how the returning fish feed the local critters and even the trees themselves. See the American Marten running deeper into the forest with a fish? The dipper with an egg in its mouth, a brown bear catching the salmon, or eagles and ravens doing the same? I thought it pretty great that this coincided with our local “pink” salmon stream, the Dungeness River that is having a huge spawning run right now too – over 100,000 fish and still counting.

Indian-River-Panel

And here’s the finished installation (or at least a design mockup from Harpers Ferry Center in West Virginia). It’s not approved yet, but well on the way. I left the web version large, so click the image so you can see the text and other details. This will eventually be installed along the trail in the exact location as what the painting shows. At 42″ wide, it will be a pretty large panel, almost as big as the original painting.

This installation is a great example of why I just love my job. This will be there for many years, teaching visitors about this special place by using art in an outdoor location – right at the point of contact with nature itself. My mom taught people about nature, but she did it with her books, photography and outdoor classes. I’m just doing the same thing in another way, with paintings – and I hope it never ends.

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.

Wooden Boat Paintings are Back

“Christie” is an acrylic painting on board, 14″ x 20″ and is offered as a pre-show sale for $795, custom framed in a choice gold frame with linen liner. Click the image and it’ll enlarge.

I’m  having a show at Gallery Nine in Port Townsend that opens September 7. For many years I’ve built, rebuilt, painted wooden boats, sailed them to Alaska, California and Mexico (well, that one was plastic made from goo) – and of course I painted pictures of them – lots of them. I think of wooden boats as sculpture created from natural materials and shaped into something that actually moves, and moves by the power nature provides – the wind. They’re a marriage of form and function, designed and created to fulfill a difficult task in an alien environment that is always trying to kill me. They’re beautiful, they carry us to distant places of extreme natural beauty, and do it almost silently. I paint wilderness because I truly believe it is important, and  I sail wooden boats as a way to be closer to wilderness!

So, we have a new boat now, a 1959 Lightning and it’s fairly well put back together so I’m putting it in the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September. As a little trip down memory lane for me, I dug around in our private collection and came up with some wooden boat paintings we’ve kept back, and these are going in the show. I’ll also have a bunch of less expensive Giclee prints of many of my favorites as usual, but some of the paintings haven’t been seen in years – and I think it’s a pretty sound body of work. So, this is the first blast of publicity before it opens. Join wood-wizard Chuck Stern and me at Gallery Nine September 7th if you’re local. If not, here’s the first chance at some of these paintings.

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AND, then this: a couple of weeks ago an old childhood friend stopped by for a visit. He reminded me of my FIRST wooden boat, and coincidentally I happened across this photo a few days before. Here I am (at the mast because I wasn’t sure how to steer yet. At age 14, I built this little craft in my basement, well, my parent’s basement. My mom was instrumental, as usual, in my wicked ways to run me astray. We didn’t have a power tool in the house because my dad was an intellectual and classical pianist who thought it beneath him to even pound a nail. But, somehow I bought some plywood, cut it up and put this thing together from Popular Mechanic plans. Mom sewed the sail – I bought a TV antennae for the mast and spars. I had to take the cellar door off to get it out and my dad claimed I was ruining his house – but the thing actually worked. Well, almost: we had to stay near shore because it leaked like an old sock. Still, I did it, and it began a sailing journey I’m still on today, five decades later. And yes, I’ve learned how to steer, even on a black night in a soupy fog.

Thanks for reading this week. Hi ‘reply’ to comment. It’s always fun to read what everyone thinks.
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.

Progress Pix for my Sitka Alaska Painting

Progress shown here in reverse. This is the most current version as of Friday, August 2, 2013. Trees are more refined, details emerging on the shoreline, devils club and meadow, water reflections beginning, some details with the Marten are beginning – and the dipper appears along with some salmon.  As I paint this, I can almost feel myself remembering our trip there, standing on this same shore and how it felt and smelled.

Defining broad areas with texture takes time.

Last week before I had National Park Service approval to proceed, I spent time blocking out color and background, which is stuff that almost never gets changed. This painting is about four feet wide – not a big one for me, but big enough to get some detail going.

And here’s the second version of the sketch I posted two weeks ago. The entire lower half was enlarged by about 15% with the bear, deer, harlequin ducks and some other stuff moved around to fit better.  The lower part was enlarged to show off the critters that tell the story of how the salmon return home to spawn, die and are subsequently eaten by local birds and animals that, in turn, provide nutrients to the forest. I had to provide (prove) that the foreground critters were sized correctly in relationship to each other, so the Raven = 24″, Dipper = 7.5″, Marten = 19-27″, which in my view is about correct.  Am I getting there?

 

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.