Tag Archives: Orca Whales

New Painting Post, Sailing, Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

Sucia Island Marine Food Webs

There are 16 paintings here, all in layers!

This is my second effort for two wayside panels at Sucia Island in the San Juan Islands. See the other one here. This one is much more complex, many pieces of art all layered together to tell the story of forage fish, salmon and orca whales.

Here is the initial concept.

And here is the seventh version.

And below are the individual little paintings used to make this final composite.

Many Friends groups often use my final art for other uses. We put the art on posters, jigsaw puzzles, framed art they can use for fund-raising. Sorry to say, but obviously that can’t be the case with this one – but I thought the orca and salmon paintings were worthy of being stand-alone art.

I know lots of Northwest boaters read this blog since I also write a monthly page for 48 North, the Puget Sound boating magazine. Next time you’re anchored off Sucia Island, search out these two installations. They’ll be living their lives sitting beside Mud Bay. I will, too.

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.

Jigsaw Puzzles, Murals, New Painting Post

Shouting Out: Four New Jigsaw Puzzles now available

All these puzzles are available in our secure webstore with the others, same price $18.95 each and $4.99 shipping on as many as you can buy in one order to one address. 

Shouting out, because we didn’t have ANY summer puzzle season since all National Park Visitor Centers were closed – you know, where most people buy our puzzles!

But now: Just in time for the holidays, we have four new puzzles. And not just new puzzles, but new designs, smaller boxes for easier storing and mailing as gifts, and a free reference poster included in each one. The reference poster makes it easy for two people to work on a puzzle at once, and each can have a reference image (the box and the poster). The boxes are now about 60% of the size of the old ones, but the puzzles are still 500-pieces, 18″ x 24″ finished size, same sized pieces and clean cuts on the pieces. It’s a nice improvement, and we’re aiming to remake all our puzzles like this as titles run out.

Puzzle pieces in a bag, reference poster, box top and interpretive stuff on the box back. Species list and even my ink drawings on the box sides.

Olympic High Country is a painting that’s never been seen or used before for a puzzle. It was painted because this place means a lot to me, and those rare endemic animals and flowers of our local mountains are really interesting. It’s a good image for a puzzle. Here’s the link to the puzzle in the store.

Killer Whales of the Salish Sea

I painted this Orca Whales image for a park on San Juan Island, and the complexity of the background instantly made it a candidate for a jigsaw puzzle. Here’s the link to this one in our store.

Two Sides of the Sea

A new design of our best-selling image. This colorful mural is now enhanced with the reference poster and smaller box, just like the others.

Old-growth Forests of the Pacific Northwest

The fourth image is a redesign of my Mount Rainier mural at the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center on the southeast side of the park. We’re at the end of our run and thought we’d start fresh with this instead of just reprinting it. Same reference poster and smaller box as the others. The detail in the foreground makes for a really complex and entertaining puzzle that’ll keep you up all night.

All these puzzles are available in our secure webstore with the others, same price $18.95 each and $4.99 shipping on as many as you can buy in one order to one address.  Again, here’s the link to all four in our store, plus the others everyone seems to love.

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.

Commissioned paintings, Murals, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Lime Kiln and Orca Whales

I received some installation photos for my Lime Kiln Point Lighthouse paintings. Everyone seems to like them, so I thought I’d share it all here for the record. I painted these last winter for Washington State Parks with EDX Exhibits in Seattle. Installation and these photos were by Marius at Doty Signs in Seattle.

This lighthouse is THE place to watch orca whales up close in the wild. There’s possibly no place on Earth you can get closer to wild whales without getting on a boat, and in summer, people line the shoreline here to watch the killer whale families feeding on salmon right in front of them. This is a big deal since the southern population of orcas is endangered and it’s not looking good for a recovery. It’s a thrilling experience to see them, and I’m proud to say my stuff now explains what people are looking at. Plus, there are one or two really nice looking pieces of art!

This is sort of a big deal for me, too, as new rules don’t allow boats to approach these endangered animals, leaving Lime Kiln as the best viewing in the Northwest. It’s also a place I know well, since I had “October”, my 40-foot sloop tied in nearby Friday Harbor in the ’80s – my ‘painting platform’ as I sailed from San Diego to Alaska and most places in between. I have history here. Nancy and I, decades later aboard our 45′ floating home ‘Rumpy’ came by here one afternoon and watched in amazement as an entire orca family slowly swam directly beneath our boat (engine off). One of the big males was bigger than our boat, but they minded their manners and didn’t touch us.

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.

New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Lime Kiln Point – Orca Wayside Art in the San Juan Islands

This painting is one of four for Lime Kiln State Park, west side of San Juan Island and Friday Harbor. If you want to see whales in the Northwest without getting on a boat, this is the place. Well, technically, you have to get on a ferry to get to the island, but you get the point. On a summer day, there can be hundreds of people lined up here on the cliff to watch the killer whale show right in front of them – and soon they’ll also be immersed in my paintings as well. 

After adding the text to the panel, words and art go together fairly well on this one. Two panels are in the six-foot range, but this one is half that. The others are coming soon and I’ll try to post them as we go along.

I lived six summers in Friday Harbor when my first bigger boat, 40′ sloop “October” was here – and I had my gallery in Ferndale, Ca. This was in the 80’s, and I learned to paint the Northwest here. I’d go out to Lime Kiln Point and watch these big guys come right up to shore. Later, when Nancy and I lived on our 45′ Monk “Rumpy”, we’d come up from Port Townsend and lucky timing once put us here when an entire pod was too. We stopped the boat, turned off the engine and watched, shocked, as the entire family casually swam under us. The big male was bigger than the boat, or so it seemed. No one touched, we were thrilled, dry mouths and all. And now my art goes on shore. Paint hard, live long and connections like this happen all the time. I’m constantly thrilled at this life-long deep connection to nature. Not much matters more except the lovely person I share this with!

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.