Tag Archives: Olympic

New Painting Post

Meander Up the Dosewallips

Some weeks are just like this.Spend the entire week drawing, drawing, drawing – but in the end there isn’t a single finished painting to show for it. There’s a stack of concept stuff, in between or in progress but not a postable painting in the lot. I think there’s about 20 of them.

Oh, and did I say the weather turned, poof, into summer. So, put the top down on the little car and head for the hills – and a little hike along the Dosewallips River in the Olympic Mountains. Harlequin ducks, bald eagles, a ruffed grouse strutting his manly stuff, hooded mergansers, trilliums and bleeding hearts, violets and salmonberry in bloom. It just couldn’t have been nicer, and I wanted to share. This photo is in about 2 miles, Nancy photographing a little waterfall coming down into the Dosewallips (that’s doe-see-wollips for those out of town)

Thanks for reading this week. I’ve got a dusy of a painting project almost ready to show, and it doesn’t involve canvas or paper, but more sea-going.
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

2011 Olympic NP Bugler cover

Summer’s almost over and I almost forgot to post this while it’s still current.

On September 17, the official ceremony for the removal of the Elwha River dams will kickoff, but I’ve been involved with this for several years now. I was pleased when the park’s summer newspaper (the handout at the park gates) featured a section of one of the two murals I painted showing what this big river might look like a few years from now. In the upper left corner you can see what will remain of the upper Glines Canyon dam when the river will hopefully become one of the largest salmon producing streams (again) on the peninsula.

My task for these paintings was to show how the river and its salmon influence everything else there. Many plants and animals rely on a healthy salmon runs for nutrients. It’s not just the bears and raccoons, herons and jays that eat the spawned-out fish, but as they drag the fish into the forests, this soon becomes ‘fish emulsion’ for the big trees too. The forests provide a stable environment for a new generation of fish, while the fish give back fertilizer when they return. This cycle has been stopped for a full century by the two dams that will soon be gone.

And I’m affected too. Learning this stuff is the best part of painting nature for a living. It’s not just a painting, but more knowledge I get to cram under that size-8 1/4 hat.

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.

Murals, New Painting Post, Waysides

A National Treasure- Sol Duc Valley in Olympic National Park

National_Treasure

I ran across this post I had originally written last year, but somehow it was never published. I probably had a bunch of posts and this one didn’t make the cut, but it’s never too late for good art, right?

As one drives up the Sol Duc Valley, on the northwest side of Olympic National Park west of Seattle, there are lots of pull-outs with overlooks to the river or trails leading to some of the best forests I know. This isn’t quite temperate rain forest, but it’s close. It truly is a National Treasure, and it’s a big thanks to the folks at Olympic N.P. who continue to allow me to paint my “backyard”.

Readers seem interested in the artistic processes that go into these more complex paintings. It’s one thing to paint a fine-art image of an old-growth forest. I can just be, well, “artistic” and I paint what I see or what I like, but these complex collages with lots of species are a different beast. Not only do I have to paint the bear, but it has to at least appear to be very accurate. It has to be sized properly with reference to dozens of other critters, and it has to be animated and not stiff. I can’t place, say, a bobcat right next to a rabbit, or a shady plant out in the open. Sometimes it’s a real challenge.

Here’s the fourth draft of the initial sketch.

Wayside UniGuide Grid v. 2.0 (September 2006)
Wayside UniGuide Grid v. 2.0 (September 2006)

As you can see, the finished painting ended up being wildly different than this sketch. Critters appeared, then disappeared, then arrived in other locations. (Sort of like the squirrels that continually try to break into our barn. I chased one out today that was attempting to hide in the Fiberglas insulation over my workbench.) I also had to figure out what to paint behind the text, so this painting could also be used for other things such as park publications and exhibits maybe without the text – or maybe even a future jigsaw puzzle.

And you thought being an artist was easy! Well, maybe not easy, but after 40 years it’s still a lot of fun. It’s often said that being a painter is an old-man’s game. I’m starting to believe 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.

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New Painting Post

Acres of Glacial Lilies – It’s Finally Summer

On August 6th, the park finally opened the road out to Olympic National Park’s Obstruction Pass. From the acres of cars and people at tourist-center Hurricane Ridge, as soon as we hit the dirt road we transended into acres of glacial lilies and almost no cars or people. It’s amazing how park visitors all clump together in herds.

With the drifts still melting on one of the largest snowpacks on record, neither of us have ever seen such an amazing display of alpine flowers. It’s not just summer August flowers, but spring glacier and fawn lilies to mid-summer tiger lilies. The place is awash in perfume, and as we sat on the edge of this field of color I watched a big bumblebee slowly weaving around like it was drunk, going from one bisort bloom to the next, completely ignoring all the other species. So, was this bisort Sunday, followed by lily Monday and paintbrush Tuesday?

Click to enlarge both images.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $120 unframed.
The nice wooden 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

A New Puzzle Release – Elk Prairie

Elk Prairie Puzzle

Nancy and I are proud to announce a new puzzle – Elk Prairie, a 18″ x 24″ 500-piece jigsaw puzzle like our many others (almost 50 now). This one took awhile to produce, but we think it’s one of the best we’ve printed in years. It features the increasingly rare pocket prairie habitat of old-growth forests that are found from Northern California to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. This is home to Roosevelt elk, pileated woodpeckers, bears, bobcats and coyotes. Closer in the foreground, you’ll find snakes, toads, lizards and other plants and animals that make up this interesting ecosystem. It’s a crowded place.

As usual, the box back has all sorts of interesting interpretive stuff on it, and we think it’s a puzzle you’ll enjoy putting together as much as I enjoyed painting it. If you click the image, it should enlarge in your browser.

You can click through to the website and buy it here, or, you can just Email us for details and we can send it with an invoice to pay from.

Thanks for reading this week, and we hope you like the new puzzle.
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. She’s working on a new website that looks great.

New Painting Post

Hole-In-The-Wall at Rialto Beach

We were on the road to Moab, Utah for some business and sunny hiking on the slick-rock. Then – the updated weather report said it was going to be in the mid-90’s, and, not wanting to just be normal people, we turned right instead and went out to the cool, wild and always delightful Olympic Coast. Saved a grand in camping and gas, and how could this be any less amazing than where we were originally going? We’ll get to Utah sooner or later, just not this week. And being able to do these things really is what being an artist is all about.

While sitting on the beach between hikes I did a couple of watercolors. This one was on a partially overcast day, so I kept it to only two colors. This is low tide at Hole-In-the-Wall at Rialto Beach – rated #2 in Olympic National Park sights to see. There were only two other people on the beach!

We continued past this area, past the shipwreck stuff, the eagle’s nest and possible Quileute werewolves left over from the Twilight movies that were filmed here, and in about a mile we came to an amazing place. Most hikers on Rialto Beach only go as far as where the painting was created – a couple of miles through often very soft gravel. But if you go another mile around the next point (low tide only and you’d better plan your escape accordingly), you’ll come to a rocky flat tideland “meadow.” I can only call it a meadow because that’s what it appeared to be, like an absolutely flat (not inclining like a beach) alpine meadow below the high-tide line. (click the photo, it should enlarge so you can see it better) This place was an acre at least, and so full of sea life you couldn’t move without squashing a turban shell, or a turban filled with hermit crab. Eel grass and rockweed covered almost every surface which was interesting because eel grass is normally a sand-thing, certainly not on a rocky headland. We couldn’t count the number of seastars, limpets and mussels. Why this area is so rich we could only imagine. At high tide, it has to be only be a few feet deep, so maybe it’s the extra light, slightly warmer water, who knows – but it was hard Olympic bedrock that was flat. From Cabo to Homer, we’ve never seen anything like it in all our tramping around West Coast beaches.

The original watercolor and ink painting of Hole-in-the-Wall is 8″ x 10″ and $100 unframed.
The double mat with custom wood frame makes it a total of $125 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 – and you get the saltwater smudge on the bottom of the paper (not on the painting) for free.
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

Migrating Dunlin – Taking a Break

 

 

We were out on one of the West End Olympic beaches the other day – Beach #2 maybe, and up in the wrack I spotted this little dunlin. It seemed okay, probably just taking a well-deserved rest. What was unusual for us was that it was in the finest breeding form, a suit of clothes we don’t normally get to see over on Puget Sound around Port Townsend – over there we see Fall southbound birds in dull-gray clothes. I’m guessing that it was about half way on the north-bound migratory journey from Mexico to the North Slope of Alaska. There were a couple other dunlin also on the beach, so we assumed this one was with that bunch, and the fact it wasn’t alone felt good to us.

I was struck by the enormity of the scene. Visualize giant and endless sets of waves on a rugged shoreline, piles of drift trees all the way up into the forest where winter storms had easily tossed them, millions upon millions of polished stones and bits of driftwood stretching into the distance in both directions – and this tiny 2-ounce hemispheric traveller that weighs the same as two first class letters was on its way from Mexico to the Arctic. Worthy of a painting? I thought so?

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $125 unframed.
We have nice custom wood frames for $25 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.

Clickhere to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. She has some current posts of the same trip (ours, not the dunlin’s).

New Painting Post

Barnes Creek Trail – an Ageless Moment

Another sweet old-growth trail painting today. How many of these trails have I been on? I think it’s some genetic throwback to a distant past that compels me to hike just one more of these trails, and then paint the darned thing later (it’s two for one – first the trail experience and then reliving that pleasure in a painting). This one starts on Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park, goes gently upslope following the creek past Merrymere Falls (pretty cool in itself) and onto the flanks of Mount Storm King. About two miles out, the trail goes over a little hump past some pretty impressive trees – which is where the inspiration for this painting occurred. Don’t go up there looking for it – these things are never even close to what they actually look like. There I was, waiting for Nancy to photograph some spring flowers – knees in the dirt, head in the ferns as usual. And while I stood there soaking in the forest, I just fell in love with the place – the gentle flow of the trail, the glow of light on a few leaves, the agelessness of it all.

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $320 unframed.
A custom wood frame is about $25 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

Demise of a Favorite Bridge

Bark Shanty Bridge – Big Quilcene River: If you’ve been reading these posts for a few years, you might recognize this painting. Recently we hiked the same trail under those same giant trees, the Lower Big Quil a few miles south of us. At just under the three mile mark, first one beautiful old bridge, then Bark Shanty Flat with giant cedars and Doug-firs, and around the bend to a very disheartening sight. Bark Shanty Bridge has been hit by not one, but two giant trees, and the far end is crushed to pieces. It’s cleared away and open to hikers only, but the deed is done and the bridge will soon be history. The Forest Service says it’s letting a contract this summer for a replacement, and if the new bridge on the nearby Dungeness Trail is any example, they’ll do a good job of carefully replacing it with another hand-carved log span. BUT, OUR bridge is soon to be gone – the one I used as the model for this painting. It had real character – a fish net nailed across the tread to improve traction, mossy handrails, notched logs for the cross beams. The Forest Service isn’t sure how old it is, but I’m guessing 1950’s at least – probably not WPA-age because wood just doesn’t last all that long up in those wet forests. As my painterly-life has gone on, this has happened more times than I can count, and I’m beginning to think it’s bad luck – or good luck, maybe, to recognize something beautiful and interesting – and instill some sort of painterly immortality upon it before it’s gone.

The Bark Shanty Bridge the other day. You can see where the trees hit it on the far side, and the splintered spire of the second tree’s base. Evidently during a winter’s high water, the upper sections of both trees then washed back downstream and lodged under the bridge.

We still have prints available of this painting. Here they are on the main website.
Or, you can 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. I think she’s cooking up a blog post of this too.

New Painting Post

The Marmots of Hurricane Hill

A local project this week. Olympic National Park is just to the southwest of us, we see the snow shining on the peaks just a few miles away. The Olympic Peninsula is a biological island, with water on three sides and lowland on the fourth, so Olympic’s alpine is really isolated from the rest of the continent. Because of this, there are at least twenty-three plants and animals that are only found here – although a couple are on Vancouver Island peaks too. Take a walk in the alpine and you’ll see nature you can’t see anywhere else. One of these is the Olympic marmot, a big meadow-living woodchuck that spends its summers eating sedges and grasses as it prepares for the next 8 months of underground sleeping. We often see these guys hanging out on their den “front porches”, watching for preditors. But recently, their meadows have been changing – and not for the better. One might say the neighborhood has been going to the dogs (coyotes).

So this bit of art will alert visitors as they climb the Hurricane Hill trail to watch for a rare critter that is in trouble. Climate Change? Well, the Park might not say this, but I see thousands of brand new little confers invading the upper meadows, where trees haven’t been before. It’s like winters aren’t as harsh, the growing season just a bit longer. More trees equal better cover for lowland coyotes to sneak through as they go after the marmots. And the coyotes are here since the wolves have been exterminated!

For me, it’s another chance to learn more about nature – and figure out how to illustrate it so you can too.

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.