Tag Archives: Mountains

Hiking, National Park Service, New Painting Post, Wildlife

North Fork Sol Duc River – a new painting

This painting is 16″ x 20″ 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. Shipping would be extra but we usually ship UPS so it won’t be much.

This painting was inspired by a day hike up the North Fork of the Sol Duc River in nearby Olympic National Park. Not many hikers get here, as it requires a breathe-taking thigh-deep river crossing, but it’s worth every icy step. Once on the east side of the river, the trail goes for miles along the banks, from pool to pool and finally turns into a vague rambling through streamside brush. In places there are sandstone-scoured potholes, meadows beneath huge big-leaf maple groves, just a glorious Olympic ramble. This place has produced several paintings from me, all similar, all emotional light studies of this pristine river’s journey from alpine down into the main stem of the Sol Duc.

Where does this trail start and end? On Olympic National Park’s Sol Duc River Road there’s a parking area just a quarter mile upstream from Salmon Cascades. The trail heads upslope on the east side of the road, the drops to the North Fork in half a mile past the ford. It’s about eight miles upslope to an old CCC shelter, then a few more miles to Mount Appleton and Blue Lake. While the main Sol Duc trail system is mobbed in summer, almost no one makes it this pristine place, just a raven’s flight of a couple of minutes.

This painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas, and is available. Email me if you’re interested at larryeifert@gmail.com.  It’s also available with the nice Taos school inspired frame (like you see here) and I already have a shipping crate ready to go. The offering price framed as you see it here is $950 – shipping cost is extra but it will go double boxed UPS.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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 stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.

Commissioned paintings, Murals, National Park Service, New Painting Post

Glacier Park sloppy mural details

I posted about this painting of Glacier National Park recently, and now I’ve scanned it for the next step in becoming the back of the park map. As I was scanning and then cleaning up the file in Photoshop, I was struck with how loose and abstract my stuff gets when you zoom in on it. Brush strokes, smudges, finger prints, cat hair, my hair (what’s left of it) is all in here, stuck down forever. I think it’s a good view of my painting process, so here are some samples I screen-grabbed as I went.

This first one is the ptarmigan chicks in the center foreground. Notice the while lines around the heads to help bring that out from the background. And the vague indication of the rocks that are only a few brush strokes building from dark to light.  Not detailed at all, none of it, but it still suffices to tell the story. Click on all these to see larger versions in your browser. It helps understand what I’m showing.

And here is the ram’s head on the painting’s right. In the closeup details on the second image, you can see it’s really just a gauzy overlay of white that makes for the final presentation, and you can see again that this entire animal was initially painted dark umber to begin with.

Lower left corner with the snowshoe hare and butterfly, it all works pretty well at this resolution, but blow it up so you can actually see the brush strokes and it’s pretty darned abstract.

And finally, the area around the elk, flowers and sedges, alpine landscape with the stream. It looks okay at this normal resolution.

But as I zoom in on it, the thing falls apart fairly quickly.

If I presented this in a gallery situation, would it work? Probably, because people will buy anything = witness the last presidency. But there’s not much fine detail here except some dabs and dashes of paint. What I’m trying to get across here is that big paintings are really just that, dabs and dashes. I get questions about my process and I’d have to say here that it’s all just dabbing and dashing, splashing paint on a flat surface and standing back every few minutes to see how it’s going. In the end, it’s a huge finished thing that looks okay, but every moment is just abstract art in each very tiny area – then repeat over and over.

What IS this, anyway? What an abstract or maybe even non-objective piece of art.

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.

New Painting Post

El Malpais National Monument sketch #2

Revision time – stay with me on this. I know this isn’t in color, but pencil drawing is almost a lost skill, and I’m still fairly good with it. Lots of people ask me how it is to work for the National Park Service. Well, it’s like a bunch of bananas, there’s good and bad, sometimes in the same bunch. So far, this project has been all good!

A few posts ago, I showed the first detailed sketch for this New Mexico painting, the one below. Now the park has made requests for changes, with plenty of ‘please’s. An entirely new sketch was called for.  No complaints, all their thoughts were valid, and some things I just plain forgot to add. The top sketch was submitted this week for a second review. What’s the difference? Bigger cave, straightened the right tree, removed the left tree, cliff bigger, and most of all, an aspen – Douglas-fir grove on the left with plenty of a’a lava. That’s the lava that looks impossible to walk on, and is (see the photo below). At El Malpais National Monument, it’s mixed with lots of pahoehoe, the ropy lava that flows like water in its molten form. This place, west of Albuquerque, has 400 lava caves, so it was important to show more of that, too.Below, our guide-ranger in a mass of a’a lava. Impossible to walk on, impossible to paint! Somewhere in this mess is my phone, still sitting where it fell out of my pack and, for me, gone forever! And below a pot shard from one of the almost-invisible pueblo ruins. They wanted more of these, which is shown in the new sketch along the foreground. This piece was just sitting on the ground and is probably over 1000 years old. The hand-painted lines are far more skilled than modern pots from the same tribe that are made for tourists.

Soon, I’ll get either a go-ahead on the final art, or a request for some additional changes – not likely anything imposing. Too many pronghorn, a smaller peregrine falcon, stuff like that. I’m eager to paint this because, as usual, I’ll get a chance to relive the very tasty experience of going there this past summer.

Thanks for reading my stuff 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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post

Curving Around The Little Tarn

Click to enlarge.

A new painting today. Seems like each Fall I go into this frenzy of painting alpine images, of trails and water, mountains and meadows – of places I wish I still was. There will be more, I promise. I really like the solid feel this trail has, as if summer dust is inches deep. With a summer like the one we’ve had, I sure needed to include dust. Nancy and I went up a trail a couple of weeks ago that wasn’t the most pleasant – too hot, too much weight, maybe too old for too hot and heavy – but I’m not complaining. It was paradise for both of us.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed, my price before it gets to the gallery. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
This custom frame has a triple liner and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print. I have other frames.
Email us for details.

This is one of those ‘little tarns’ in the Olympic Mountains. A favorite of mine, because you can see the purity of its evolution, how the snow pocket to the right might have been another of these, or one in the process of being born. The little lake has a life that’s entire directed by the little rock ledge that creates a nice little waterfall. Eventually, the falls will erode the rock, the lake will vanish into a meadow.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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 rather amazing photographs

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

New Painting Post

Where Is This? A Little Travel Quiz

Yuming-Yang-commission

Private commission, sold. Click the image and it’ll enlarge in your browser.

This week it’s a test for those Northwest-Coast-hikers and lovers of all things rainforest and wilderness coast. Where is this? Big wild beach, sea stacks, big river coming down from snow-covered mountains, old-growth forest. Nope, not Canada. There are some tiger lilies, a few lupine and false soloman seal to round it out. But where is it? Get it right and I’ll send you a free park jigsaw puzzle of your choice.

 

This is a commission for a buyer of mine who lives in Texas. Used to live here in the Seattle area, loves the Northwest, but is now stuck in a place so unlike the Northwest he’s been purchasing my paintings to remind him where his heart really is. Thanks, Yuming, it was a lot of fun.

And thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

Posts about other stuff

A New Website For Me – Oh Boy

Eifert-front-page

See it here at LarryEifert.com

I’ve probably spent too much time messing with this instead of painting, but I now have a new website, completely redesigned, lots of new stuff, lots of little interesting corners with new content. And with a total of around 390 pages and posts, things were getting messy with the old one – so, I spent some time over the holidays tearing it apart and rebuilding a more modern version.

 

This one is ‘responsive’, meaning it looks good on your phone and tablet, pc and laptop – all of them at once if you have eight eyes. It still has the shopping cart with all the goodies like the puzzles, but there are new travel albums, 24 pages of murals and park projects that are better laid out. Better search capabilities are there too.  That’s Nancy lurking behind all the backgrounds, she comes, she goes, up and down some of our favorite local trails.

Smaller-Wildlife-Paintings

All my weekly posts are here too – might make a good book someday. There are over 300 of them. The comments are still closed until I can find a better spam screening, but that’s coming soon.

I finally got all the recent smaller paintings into albums there that can be seen as slideshows. There’s a lot of content that’s never been seen like this. Again, here’s the link, but it’s still just larryeifert.com.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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. We’re redesigning her site too – so check it out.

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

New Painting Post

Royal Basin Trail – Into the Light

Royal-Basin---Into-the-Light

We recently hiked this glorious trail, and I always love to relive good times by painting them. Miles of old-growth forest in a mature western hemlock forest, trails going off in various directions to alpine places of glorious solitude, the sounds of the Dungeness River always in ear-shot. It’s a special place we go to often. So here’s a little painting expressing that. If I die tomorrow and walk into the Light, this is how I hope it will be.

Royal-Basin-Into-Light_framed

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 6″ x 8″ and $145 custom framed with a triple mat and glass. The glass size is 11″ x 14″ and outside measurements are 14″ x 17″.
Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

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

The Little Tarn on Lillian Ridge

Lilian-Ridge-Tarn

“Little Tarn on Lillian Ridge” acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ framed: $145.

Actually, the little tarn doesn’t look anything like this, but it was a starting point. It’s a favorite place of ours, maybe yours too for a few or you that hike the Obstruction Point area of Olympic National Park. For me, this area is about as close to ‘goin’ to church’ as I can find. It’s one of the highest roads in the Northwest, and once out of the darned car bumping along that ridgetop, there are miles upon miles of alpine landscapes to wonder.

We hiked down here a couple of weeks ago, below the ridge and away from other hikers. The loudest sounds we heard were big bumblebees working the lupine and bluebells, and a couple of gray jays giving their soft greetings. So I painted it, and then get to live it all over again in the studio – like a memory of a good dream.

Little-Tarn-framed

This ORIGINAL FRAMED painting is acrylic on paper board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 custom FRAMED and a tad bit more for Priority Mail. Glass is 11″ x 14″, outside frame measurement is 14″ x 17″. This is the original painting, NOT a print. Remember, I’m offering this with the frame and a triple custom mat. Email us for details.

SOLD, THIS PAINTING IS GOING TO TEXAS TO SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO BE IN THE OLYMPICS.

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

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.

New Painting Post

It’s a wrap – Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone

Prismatic-Hot-Springs

  • This week I finished up this new mural about Yellowstone Climate Change. I’m happy with it – or at least as happy as I ever get at this stage of working on something for a month and never truly knowing how it’s going to end. This painting and the last Yellowstone mural about whitebark pines (finished last month and seen here), were both funded by the Crater Lake Foundation. I know it seems odd to have someone at Crater Lake fund two Yellowstone paintings, but there’s more to this. First is that this painting is the 12th big painting I’ve done for them, and it’s part of a broad scheme for the funders to create an art collection reflecting various ecosystems and habitats centered around western pines. Whitebarks, bristlecones and now the lodgepoles in this one, are all threatened by Climate Change, and using art to educate is what I’m all about – so I’m thrilled to be able to contribute to this.
  • And, once again, here is the original sketch so you can see how it evolved for the concept. And, once again here’s the story. Lodgepole pines are built to handle wildfire. Their cones won’t even open unless their heated. But today’s hotter summers, warmer winters and less snow mean many more pine bark beetles are surviving cold winters and killing millions of these trees.
  • This painting is meant to show the Yellowstone ecosystem, its wildlife and how the forests are being battered into something almost unfit for wildlife to live in. It’s a trick to paint destruction and yet show it as beauty, and yet as musician Jack Johnson says in this Climate Change YouTube video (please take a minute and watch it), we don’t have to think of this as an end point, just change we need to somehow learn how to handle – and leave this beautiful world in a better place than when we arrived in it.
Hot-Spring-sketch-vs1

Thanks for reading this week. Pass the video on – I thought it was very good.
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.