Tag Archives: North Cascades

New Painting Post

Low Water – High Contrast

I get a charge out of finding little back corners in nature, dark places that look as if they’ve been created from a painting, sort of reverse art. This was one of those places. North Fork of the Nooksack River, a wild and crazy place during a storm, but as the sun set here in late summer a few months ago, it was as soft and ‘painterly’ as they come. And in a few minutes the sun was gone, color was gone, light was gone and it was as if this scene never happened.

 

When I was growing up and probably like some of you, my parents read all those classic adventure novels to me each night. I fell asleep listening to tales about the Last of the Mohicans,  the black spot in Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer and Huck – all illustrated by my hero NC Wyeth. I remember I would always sit on the left side of the book so I could study the cover art when it tilted a bit. That was 60 years go and I still try to paint like that guy. Father of Andrew Wyeth, American painter of even bigger renown, he was a large man that left a huge legacy. Wyeth’s style featured deep shadows, moody warm ocher light that, at least to me, always looked like the canvas was glowing from within – like there was a light bulb behind it. And those shadows – well, let’s just say there were wild critters lurking in every one, even if you couldn’t see them. The colors in this painting come straight from NC’s pallet, and of the 8 or so colors I use (that’s about it, total – just call me cheap), all were his too. If you don’t know about NC, Google him and see where I came from – or at least where my pallet came from.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $160 unframed.
We have custom wood frames that would make it a total of $185 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.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Light in the Meadows

I painted this a few months ago, but larger stuff kept getting on the weekly blog. I painted this because I was struck by the misty air here that almost made the ground and creek glow. On the far edge of the flood plain the alders were really lighting up, like a spotlight had been trained on them, but in a few seconds this all changed when a cloud moved over us and changed the light from warm to cool. Gone, but I still remember the moment. It’s what paintings are all about, chasing those glorious moments of memory. Too many giant paintings have been coming out of this studio in the past few months and I’m sure ready for some of these “moments” here.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 9″ x 12″ and $140 unframed.
Custom frame makes it a total of $170 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.

On a more ‘retail’ note, the website is finally coming back together and by the rate of people buying Christmas stuff, it seems to be working Okay. I’m adding the prints and puzzles, journals and stuff every day, so stay tuned for more as the experience gets richer. http://larryeifert.com/shop is the portal, but you can also get to it from the website simply at http://larryeifert.com

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

 

New Painting Post

Heather Pass

I painted this back in October, 2011 when we were in Washington’s North Cascades. It made it past the scan, into a frame, into the blog – but I never hit the “Post” button. For the last eight months the canvas has just sat there in my studio and also on the blog software – and the title stares at me each time I start the program. “ME, ME, Post ME” it screams, but each week I’ve sent out something else I thought was more interesting. But, now that the High-Country around the West is melting out and trails are beginning to open up, maybe it’s time to show this one.

Here’s what I wrote all those months ago, thinking I would post it then:

Heather Pass is a good 3-mile climb in the North Cascades, and while we’ve been here twice, neither were in late afternoon when the sun was doing this yellow-orange-thing. The last time we were here, there was a lone hiker camped just below this heather-filled bench, and I envyed him for his upcoming sunset and evening solitary view. Beside his single tent was a back-packer’s expresso maker, and this little spring runoff stream in the painting would be his coffee water the next morning. If there’s a reason why spending the night in a place wouldn’t be anything but glorious, I can’t think of it.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $140 unframed.
A custom wood 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.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Going to Lewis Lake

This is another painting from late summer – and possibly my favorite from the past few months. Just haven’t had time to post it.

“Going to Lewis Lake” not, “Taking the trail to Lewis Lake” – because there isn’t one (the trail, that is). In fact, we didn’t make it to Lewis Lake because the snowy boulder hopping was a bit much and we didn’t have our ice gear. Not that I minded – the view right here was as far as we got and was sure worth the climb, Lewis Lake or not. If there’s anything I love dearly to paint, it’s an alpine landscape with all sorts of craggy angles and snow in both sun and shade. The North Cascades are my idea of  painterly paradise.

I’ve thought a lot about why this is a beautiful image to me, and I’m pretty sure it’s partly the idea that these landscapes are delicately fragile and gigantically solid – soft and deadly, both at the same time. It’s not a place you can relax. Contrast the little soft-stemmed alpine lupine and paintbrush to places still snow-covered – to the ominous sounds of distant rockfall as thawing ice loosens yet another boulder. It’s a place of wildly grand contrasts painters love, at least I do, even if it was difficult to find a place to sit and compose a future painting without squashing an entire little alpine garden.

I’ve decided to hang on to this one for a bit – just because I like it so much. So, at the moment it’s not for sale. We don’t ever really hang art in our own home, mainly because we have mostly big windows and almost no walls – but this one found its way to one of the few spots, and I enjoy reliving this grand hiking experience every time I see it. 

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Blue Lake

 

 A pretty normal name for a very pretty lake. So pretty we visited it several times this summer, and each time I thought it would make a nice painting. Blue Lake is just barely on the west side of the North Cascade Crest here in Washington, almost exactly 100 miles east of our studio here in Port Townsend. When we first asked about the place, we were told “You have to get up there. This is the sort of alpine lake you want to sit down with your lunch and just enjoy for awhile.” And so it was! We found all sorts of mountain goat hair stuck on branches and pikas yelling “peek” to announce we were there. Pristine High Country always gets me! 

I was looking at the current snow levels for this same area just yesterday, and saw that some North Cascade passes now have 75 inches already on the ground. Seems pretty early for that sort of thing, doesn’t it?

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $120 unframed.
A custom wood frame makes it a total of $145 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.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Cutthroat Creek Meadows

This painting and about 20 others are destined for a November show I’m having at Gallery Nine in Port Townsend. If sold here on the blog, I hope I can still hang it there for a week or so. While only about 5% of my mailing list is from Port Townsend, I’ll be hanging the show on Monday if you’d like a pre-show preview before Saturday Gallery Walk.

Cutthroat Lake is on the east side of the North Cascades, but just barely. Where the snowmelt runs out of the lake, it braids itself through some very pretty mosquito-filled meadows, then comes together to plunge down into Early Winters Creek towards the Methow Valley in eastern Washington. We were there a few months ago and I was interested in the way the light was streaming through the trees and onto the creek. It made for a very interesting and complex set of light patterns around the jumble of islands, downed trees and moving water. From this location, we turned around and walked a few hundred feet, and this was the spectacular scene that awaited us. (Clicking on both these images will enlarge them.)

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 11″ x 14″ and $140 unframed.
The custom wood frame makes it a total of $165 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 here for details or just hit reply.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Clipchuck

We somehow managed a couple of partial weeks of hiking in the North Cascades – known as the American Alps and for good reason. When driving over the North Cascades Highway just south of the Canadian border and drop down off Rainy and Washington Passes, there are several USFS campgrounds before you hit the summer heat of Winthrop. Our favorite is at Clipchuck. Each day we’d drive up the dozen or so miles to the cool alpine and hike the lake and pass trails, then return to our campsite high over Early Winters Creek – and this painting is from the picnic table in Site 28. Just walk a few feet upslope and a glorious view of that crashing creek emerges. Walk another step and you’re over the cliff and probably in the creek 100 feet below.

And, yes, the name Early Winters should ring a bell with some older hikers. In the 70’s, it was the first outdoor equipment company that sold products made of Goretex.

One of the hikes here is an 8-mile loop gaining over 2000 vertical feet. Half way around we came to the North Cascades NP boundary and this sign is firmly planted in a snowdrift on Horsefly Pass (click to enlarge it so you can see). I’d love to know who thought it necessary to state in 5-inch letters that hunting isn’t allowed here. Am I missing something? Who would do this climb equivalent to two Empire State Buildings to kill something and then carry it (and the gun) back down the 2000 feet?  But then I’ve never understood the concept of killing wild animals anyway.

This ORIGINAL painting (not the photo) is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $125 unframed.
We have some custom wood frames that makes it a total of $140 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.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Cedar Falls Trail – A Picnic Table Painting

A traditional watercolor painting for today. We spent last week hiking on the east side of the North Cascades and each evening I painted on the picnic table in Site 38, Pearrygin Lake State Park. Like everyone else in the West, they’ve experienced record snowpack and with temperatures in the 80’s, the snow is wasting no time getting out of there. And with spring pushed into summer, the flowers were just amazing. All the alpine lakes are still iced up, but these lower trails along the rivers were stunning, with lupine, paintbrush, calypso orchids, chocolate lilies, mountain ash, balsamroot – all of it in bloom at once. So, back in camp I got out the paints to relive the same experience twice.

While on this trail, I did a short little soundscape recording. I’m trying to figure out a way to easily add sound clips to paintings of these blog trail paintings, so here goes.

If you’re reading this from an email, try this: Cedar-falls-soundscape

If you’re reading this on the internet blog, click this:  Cedar-Falls.amr

Pearrygin Lake is downslope of the North Cascades Highway and south of the Pasayton Wilderness, some of the wildest and most pristine country I know. With over a half million acres, the Pasayton is the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s one of the few places in the Lower 48 where trailhead signs have notices for BOTH grizzlies and wolves. This one was on the South Fork of the Twisp River coming down from North Cascades National Park and caught our eyes. It states hunters need to make sure the dog-species they’re killing is a coyote instead of a wolf. So, why would anyone climb up these steep trails to pull the trigger on a coyote when they’re in most everyone’s backyards – but then hunting anything at all has always baffled me. Doesn’t it seem like we as the now-dominant and planet caretaker species should be beyond that sort of mayhem?

Thanks for reading this week. This painting isn’t for sale just yet. The memories are too good to let it go.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

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

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.