Tag Archives: featured

Commissioned paintings, Interpretive Art, Murals, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Uncategorized, Waysides, Wildlife

Garry Oak Forest

I recently made two panels for the Whidbey Island Land Trust and Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society. Here’s the oak panel. This and a panel about nearshore restoration will be installed at the new Keystone Preserve on Whidbey Island very soon. I’m pleased how this all finished up, from concept designs, to making the art and finally making it all work with a text story. Art telling stories, we’ve been talking about that lately.

Garry oaks are the only oak trees in the Pacific Northwest, and they’ve become very rare. This is the same tree as the Oregon white oak, stately and slow-growing forests that were actually cultivated crops for thousands of years by the Indian tribes. These trees provided food and an open forest designed for other important plants such as camas and the other root vegetables for the first people who lived here.

Garry oak forest

Above is my refined sketch for the painting. I was trying to find a way to show the forest and some way to identify the important native plants that are rare as well. And this bluebird, below, gives a scale to the oak leaves and bird that could fit in the palm of my hand. Watercolor and pencil drawing.

garry oak and western bluebird

And below, the second panel for this project, about the restoration of the bluff at the Reserve, eelgrass beds, orcas, salmon and forage fish.

People have been asking, are you still painting for the National Park Service as it spirals down to non-existence? Yes, I currently have two projects and two more awaiting for them – but it’s a sad story that shows my work with them is going to end soon – thanks to the Fascist leadership who is setting up the NPS for total failure. It’s been a wonderful experience for me to spend these past decades painting art for a grateful bunch of people who cared more about their country than making money.

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

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

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.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Commissioned paintings, Interpretive Art, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Uncategorized, Waysides, Wildlife

Dungeness River Center – Sequim WA

In 2024, I was commissioned by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in Sequim, Wa to make a series of wayside panels for the Dungeness River Center. This is an interpretive center, exhibits and classrooms, for the wild and free Dungeness, one of the steepest watersheds in the country. The project went on half a year, but I never posted a word about it here. Too many other paintings to talk about, I guess – not to mention finding the time to even sit down to post them.

The Tribe asked me to make these outside panels so when the visitor center is closed, visitors still have a visual learning experience. The panels are around the building, but also along the Olympic Discovery Trail that passes nearby. This trail is also part of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail from Glacier National Park to La Push WA on the Pacific Ocean.

I’m happy with the results. This place is centered around an old railroad bridge (Railroad Bridge Park) and the Tribe bought it, gaining back a bit of their original land they had for thousands of years. In the process, we got to know a rather amazing group of S’Klallam people – and learned a lot doing it. We both felt privileged to be involved.

You’ll see both English and S’Klallam languages on these. The Tribe has programs in the local schools teaching this ancient language, and we tried to blend the languages, especially on the species captions. I think it worked pretty well, although it was a real challenge to figure out a font that has all the characters. Try finding a ADA compliant font with a backwards question mark, or a word that means Belted Kingfisher!

There’s a lot more than just painting that goes into this stuff. I don’t do it all, but from the ground up there’s the concrete pad, an ADA-approved installation of the legs and frame that will last 30 years, the aluminum panel the image is etched on is made only in South Dakota. The entire Adobe Suite of software (usually 4 programs that I use to design it) makes it print-ready. Then a committee has to approve what is written and painted so that it’s an accurate story. The art seems a secondary bit of this, but it takes the most time, and without good art, what is this but a book-on-a-stick!

We tried something new on this panel (above), making the three insets from laser-cut plastic that can be traced with pencil or crayon. School groups can trace the image onto paper to take with them – sort of a hands-on approach to a visual object.

Dusty Humphries, an artisan at the Tribal carving shed (actually a huge new building, not a shed) allowed me in to photograph his work. A truely amazing place.

Lori Grinnell Greninger seemed to be all over this project, giving us help in many ways – and not just modeling her hat – which the building was modeled after.

This last panel has the only image not of my own art or photography. Thanks to John Gussman for the drone image. Also a great thanks to Kathy Steichen for recommending me to the Tribe for this project in the first place. After a lifetime of painting, these new challenges keep me young, and I’ve worked with Kathy on many projects now.

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

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

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.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Nature Art, New Painting Post, Wildlife

2025-4-20 Robins Nest – oil on canvas

Easy to understand my motivation for THIS painting. It’s spring, nature’s renewal, Two robins getting mud in along our pond’s edge so I suspect a nest – and the Indian plum has its early leaves on. I can’t locate the nest, but no big deal.

It’s a common method for me, that of seeing a story happening in nature, then making a painting to tell that story. In this one, I tried to make the robins feel like newly weds, unsure of what to do, unsure of how all this happens. Translating it into a believable painting takes some thought. Even the soft color values might translate into patience.

Below, this rough concept drawing below shows how I went about this. No details to speak of in the drawing, just blocky shapes around the page. There’s more direction here than might meet with understanding – like how the center of interest hits the perfect spot where the top of the nest will be, where those brilliant robin’s-egg blue eggs are. Or the two large triangular areas of nothingness, pulling the viewer’s eyes to that nest area.

This is an original oil painting on stretched linen canvas, varnished and ready to hang. The canvas is 18″x24″ and the 2 1/2″ silver museum frame goes with it, making the outside dimensions 23″ x 29″. As usual for this size, I’m offering it for $1300 plus shipping costs which will probably be standard UPS rates. I have a double box ready to go. If you’re interested in learning more, please email me at larry@larryeifert.com.

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

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

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.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

Backpacking, Hiking, Interpretive Art, National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Green Rock – oil on canvas

Green Rock is an oil on canvas painting, now available. The canvas is 30″ x 40″ on stretched canvas. It is big enough I thought I’d sell it without the frame, so someone could buy it unstretched, rolled in a tube with the stretcher bars ready to go. We can talk about it.

Below is the painting in a frame, just so you can see what it looks like. I don’t have this frame at the moment, but go ahead and ask.

Where is this place?

The painting is, of course, about salmon (not the green rock). But in these big canvases I find great enjoyment in hiding stuff and telling stories – so how many salmon can YOU find?

I’ve seen many salmon along the Sol Duc River, mostly in Olympic National Park. I even have outdoor exhibit panels there telling the Sol Duc Coho salmon’s story. It’s a special place for both Nancy and me, a place many paintings have been hatched (to use a salmon word). In fact, counting up how many paintings Olympic National Park owns of mine of the Sol Duc Valley: 17! (including one with Nancy in it) Most of them are in a vault at the main visitor center in Port Angeles, so even I can’t see them. All were used for exhibits and reproduced.

If you’d like to find out more about this painting, or if it’s still available, write me at larryeifert@gmail.com.

This is a link to our new Esty store online with some of the available originals.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/EifertGallery

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

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

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.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

National Park Service, Nature Art, New Painting Post, Wildlife

Northern Spotted Owl original oil painting

This painting is sold!

Northern Spotted Owl: This is an 18″ x 24″ oil on canvas that is now available. The frame comes with it but we have other choices – I just really like the frame colors with this painting. Outside measurements are about 24″ x 30″. We can ship this at cost, double-boxed and ready to hang. Email me at larryeifert@gmail.com if you’re interested in more information. The framed price is $1300.

And here’s just the painting. Through the years, I’ve painted other images of spotted owls, several for Redwood National Park, but those were more ‘interpretive’. This is aimed at showing the dense, vibrant and truly amazing amount of organic ‘life’ in these Pacific Northwest forests. The spotted owl evolved for just this type of landscape with short wings for maneuvering through branches.

Above is a ‘progress’ photo I took in the studio, showing the evolution of this painting. It stayed fairly true to my ideas all the way through. And below are two reference photos. These were taken by Olympic National Park research crews high in the canopy at the Quainault forest. I used these for the big 500 sq ft mural installed at the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center and they are the best photos I’ve ever seen of this unseen canopy world, hundreds of feet above hikers on the ground below. It reminds me of an organic messy grocery store.

Other paintings currently available can be found here on this page of my website. I’d be happy to answer any questions about any of them. No gallery is involved.

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

Larry Eifert

Here is my Etsy site with my currently available paintings for easy sale.

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.

Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings.

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Or Crater Lake Institute’s website which I also build – viewership of several million a month!

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Under the Maple – an acrylic painting

Sorry, this is sold.

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.

New Painting Post, Wildlife

The Neighborhood – a new painting

2023-3-11 “The Neighborhood” is an acrylic painting on canvas, 30″ x 40″. It’s a little story about the communities of wildlife on the Olympic Peninsula where we live – paint. This has been on my easel for awhile, changing and evolving, sort of like the critters, themselves. We’ve seen over 90 different species here in our forest, but so far not a single elk.

No preliminary sketches were made for this painting – it was laid out as I went along, placing the elk’s nose right in the center-of-interest and everyone else radiated out from there. I set the stage for a place a bit more wet than here in dry-Port Townsend, a rainforest commonly seen just west of here.

Below are some closeup shots of the details.

I made a funny little video of my process with this painting – it’s up now on my YouTube Channel. I think it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself and this one brought tears. Damned easel. I didn’t do much editing to preserve the absurdity of it.

I go into this in my video on my channel here. There are others, too.

Or here: https://youtu.be/Dj3gCVx2U6A

This painting started out as a deer painting, then it quickly evolved into an elk and after remembering the giant bull elk (two of them) I almost ran into last summer not 2 miles from here. It grew into a full-blown ecosystem effort with many critters, all of which are here in our forest – except the spotted owl. That bird has been replaced by a similar character (barred owl) that might take my head off any minute.

Below: besides the elk, there’s a Pacific wren, two black-headed grosbeaks (they nest here in the forest), a downy woodpecker and snowshoe hare.

This painting is 30″ x 40″ acrylic on canvas and is available for sale. Email me at larry@larryeifert.com for information. Framed as you see it here, I’m asking $2300 framed, normal price for this size. No gallery fees.

And we also have this darker frame. Shipping is extra, but we have the crate ready to go.

I also did some still photography of the studio recently for my videos. Here’s a fun shot of the interior where I spend many hours of my life. It should enlarge with a click.

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.

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Pitch Ring Around the Hole

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, 18″ x 24″.  A Certificate of Authentication is included. Outside dimensions with the frame is about 25″ x 31″ The framed painting is $1300. Frame options are available. Shipping is a bit extra, but we have good crates ready to go. This frame is one influenced by the Taos School solid wood frames that I’ve been using recently. Really suits the painting and brings it back to the 1940’s.

This painting was influenced by the red-breasted nuthatch family that lives next to the studio, the most friendly bunch of birds I know. When I was building the design of this new painting, I remembered that they tend to bring fir resin to plaster a white ring around the nest cavity hole, ensuring no predictors can make it past the sticky gate. I did a video of my process, and also tell this story in my new YouTube Video, seen here with the others I’ve created. 

Here’s the original concept sketch. It shows the tree hole, parents gathered around tending to the ‘kids’. The design stayed pretty much the same to completion, which is often the case. What initially feels right to me, stays put in my mind. At this stage, I don’t think I remembered the pitch hole idea. That happened as the painting proceeded.

 

My models right outside our dining room window. Parents trying to teach the kids how to do it.

The story of birds using fir pitch on the nest entrance is well-known and even studied. I go into this in my video on my channel here.

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.

Commissioned paintings, New Painting Post, US Fish Wildlife Service, Waysides, Wildlife

Similk Bay Beach Restoration Art

I’ve painted many pieces of art for the Northwest Straits Foundation. They’re the shoreline restoration folks in Bellingham, WA that coordinates the restoration funding with actually getting the job done. And, they often come to me for the final, interpretive panel that explains what they did.

This time it was for Similk Bay along the eastern side of Whidbey Island, just northeast of Deception Pass in Washington State. It’s a very shallow bay, full of critically important eelgrass, but at low tides you could actually drive on it – it was that shallow. And people did drive on it! For years they used a small launch ramp right here, running over the eelgrass with its crabs, young salmon, forage fish, all manner of fragile aquatic life. Then: why are the crabs gone? Where are the fish?

There were people disgruntled to loose their launch pad, but sometimes progress backward is good. Below was my five-minute concept sketch. I put it in the design program to see how it fit with some text. Pretty well, I thought.

Below is my refined sketch. You can see how it’s basically it’s the same drawing, but all the details are now worked out. It still changed a lot before the final color version. All of this, including the final painting, took less than a month.

And here it is in the design program. It fits pretty well. I wrote the text, as I often do, but it was altered many times as all good writing is a collaboration before it’s final publication.

And below is the site where this printed panel will live. Cars drove right down here past the driftwood to launch their boats. The final panel below.


Here’s a sample of the beach, part of my process is to take lots of reference photos. I needed this in the studio later to figure out how the beach and bay bottom might look.

And my house model. The old launch ramp is right next to the house. I really enjoy these projects because it allows me to place art where you’d never expect to find it – ON A BEACH SAVING AN ECOSYSTEM! My paintings end up on people’s walls, but they also end up in place like this.

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

And thanks, Lisa, at Northwest Straits Foundation for continuing to support this guy, one man with a brush.

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.