I wanted to post this since I’m almost at the end of this long-running project. This is being installed shortly in the new visitor center, San Juan Island National Historical Park, Washington State. Two murals and 18 other pieces of art, this was all started in November 2020, 530 days ago as of April 14. These things take time, patience and ‘keep smiling, this can’t go on forever’. (all images should enlarge in your browser, and you’ll need that for a 35-feet painting.
Above is my original concept sketch, drawn on a piece of writing paper and placed in the plans (that weren’t even finished yet). This was for EDX, the designer and a wonderful company in Seattle I truly enjoy working with. Below, you can see the expanded version, bigger paper, more details I researched using Edward Curtis historic photos for references.
You can see how these things progress, adding detail at each stage.
Then we realized a wall with my second mural would block the left side, so I moved things around. Same content, just in different places.
And then, just like that I painted it. The fabrication contract was won by Capitol Museum Services near Washington DC, and I was on the bid as the artist that would, in effect, finish the same project I had started months before! The park would have preferred color references first for the painting, but I just went for it. I painted it half size, cut it in pieces so I could scan it, which was done in 110 individual scans on my flat-bed, then pieced together on my computer. I wonder how many artists in this country could have done all this ‘in house’?
And below is the wall it’s going on in the new visitor center, 35 feet wide by 17 feet tall. My second mural of the prairie is going on the wall to the left.
And here’s the other mural, a current scene of the park’s prairie.
A long and winding road, isn’t that what life should be. This one made me thankful I’m still doing this, a straight and narrow path of painting American nature at its best.
More soon. Stay tuned. Feel free to pass this around. People seem to enjoy seeing my process.
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Larry Eifert
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