Tag Archives: Parks

Murals, New Painting Post, Washington State Parks, Wildlife

More New Mount St. Helens Paintings

These are some of the other new paintings for the Mount St Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake, Washington. Commissioned by Washington State Parks, they are part of the interior exhibit plan and it’s complicated enough that I’ll just let the art speak for itself. There’s more than this, and the last post I published, but you’ll get the idea.

I wanted to explain the newspaper at the top. When I started painting these a few months ago, I opened one of my file cabinets to find maybe a map of the park, and this thing jumped out at me. It’s been sitting here now for 43 years, as I bought it for $2 right after the eruption – and I imagined it saying “me, me, I’m finally here to help”. And it did, as several of these paintings are direct results of the photos in this yellowing magazine. Serendipity, I think the word is.

This painting deserves a bit of explanation. Left side, immediately after the blast, right side might be today, 43 years after the blast. The elk returned immediately, and in their footsteps in the ash, water gathered and supported many critters as they expanded back into the ash zone.

And below is the mountain today (or, two summers ago when we hiked there). It’s recovering nicely and it’s always fun to see how nature finds a way to cover every inch of ground, even after it’s been blown to smithereens.

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, Jigsaw Puzzles, Murals, Nancy Cherry Eifert, New Painting Post, Washington State Parks, Wildlife

The Mount St Helens project

I’ve been working on this project since May, but the painting didn’t really start until August. I’ll bet over a million brush strokes! I’m close to finishing painting 24 images for the big revamping of the Washington State Park’s visitor center at Mt St Helens National Monument. I’m told it’s one of the biggest interpretive projects ever for Washington State Parks.

I’ve already made some art for this fantastic park before, but that was a series of outside wayside panels for the US Forest Service placed around the mountain, plus a big painting that we eventually made into a puzzle. This current effort is at Silver Lake on the park’s west side, a big visitor center built right after the eruption in 1980. I’m working with EDX in Seattle who did the designs and asked me to do the art. Sure glad they did – it’s been interesting.

For this post, I’ll focus on just the wetlands tabletop, 17 feet long and 4 feet wide, it’s one of the most complex visitor center exhibits I’ve painted. Other parts of the project will be posted soon.

I have few finished photos of this, but I did get the tabletop main painting scanned – a whopping 4.5 gigabits of data that will be printed on aluminum (I think).

Drawing and the beginnings of the painted art.
Final painting for the tabletop, about 17′ wide.
Part of the left side of the tabletop.

The tabletop has all sorts of lift lids showing hidden critters beneath them. There are spinners that show the eruption, another with the evolution of Silver Lake. It’s a very busy thing and I’m hoping kids will love it.

On my next post, I’ll get into the smaller pieces of art, then the second wall (an entirely different theme and painting 14′ long).

Nancy on the boardwalk at Silver Lake. Enough wood here to build several houses, and it’s in good shape – goes on for half a mile. The volcano is straight ahead but still 25m away.

In case you don’t remember what the mountain looks like, here’s a puzzle we did some years ago for it.

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.

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

Little Chickadee – Giant Trees

{this painting is sold – thanks, Michael}

A new painting, a portrait of one of the ‘cloud’ of chickadees that gather regularly here each day – right outside my studio. Each bird is slightly different in personality – each slightly different in ‘flitterings’ and all are a joy to watch. In these Northwestern forests, where the trees are giants and organic matter constantly rains down, these little birds have evolved to fit their world perfectly. Nuthatches, creepers, chickadees of three varieties, they all ‘hang’ together for safety. When you’re a tiny bird, there’s safety in solidarity.

The branch this chickadee is on sports lungwort, a lichen that grows into lettuce-like sheets of ‘air plants’. Some fall to the ground each winter during storms. They don’t have roots or solid attachments of any major sort, but exist by taking nutrients and water from the air. Some loberia can be a square foot in size. Once on the ground, they leach nutrients into the soil, then used by the very trees they once grew on. You won’t see these plants in a younger forest as it takes many years for them to grow – so if you see lung wort and chickadees together, you’re in an old-soul place.

Too much science? How about a nice painting?

If you’d like this original painting, an acrylic on board, it’s outside dimensions are about 12″ x 15″ and has this pecan frame. It has a custom triple mat and is under glass. We’re offering it for $195 including the frame and shipping is free within the US (usually Priory Mail). We take all sorts of payment types, just email at larry@larryeifert.com if you’re interested.

If I stand still and watch these birds, and get close, I’m struck by the noise they make when flying. “Whirrrrrrl” or try rattling your tongue, it gets pretty close to how it sounds for them. It’s relatively loud, all that air rushing about. Think what the bird hears, with ears within an inch of all that feather-flapping. It must be deafening and I wonder if that’s why they only fly short distances, to land and be able to hear again – to check if life is still safe.

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
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, Wildlife

Olympic Chipmunk – Grand Ridge Trail

This new painting is now available, or not – Nancy bought it when she saw me writing this!

It’s an Olympic chipmunk, endemic only to the Olympic Mountains of Washington State, meaning it’s only here in the Olympics. It’s a very small chipmunk species that seems to have a very pointy nose. We see them often on subalpine trails (and it’s not the other chippy down in the lowlands that’s much bigger). I was lucky enough to grab a shot of this one for reference and, since all these trails are still snowed up, this is a dalliance into late summer hiking that’s soon to happen around here. Here’s Nancy spotting the little guy on that big rock, Grand Basin in the background.

Grand Trail, the highest maintained trail in Olympic National Park, is mostly above treeline (where the chipmunks are NOT), but it also drops into the subalpine fir with occasional whitebark pine where these little guys live their lives as they have for generations. Pikas do not live in the Olympics, so I assume Olympic chipmunks replace them in this habitat.

When I walk here, I like to sense how many feet have traveled along this ridgetop before me, all the way back to the Paleo-hunters who would sit here waiting for a mammoth to wander by below them. In those days, the entire Strait was filled with ice, but this high trail was open to observant travelers – just like us.

Sorry, so far the painting isn’t for sale.

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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Pacific Wren – Forest Gatekeeper

We were going down the trail the other day. Are you with me? And this little wren was carrying on an endless mouthy song right in front of us.  We walked right up to it. Not a moment of hesitation with this four-inch brown ball of chatter, its body about the size of my thumb. Right in front of me, it confronted my right to pass as if it owned the place!  Then I had a chance to examine the pile of stuff it was perched on – a Northwest forest for sure, with young wintergreen, ragbag lichens and some kind of leafy moss. I was struck with the complexity and beauty of that bit of complex airborne mat – probably more than I was with the little bird.

A painting like this gives me a chance to look. Not just to see something, but actually to LOOK at it. The details of one small place on our planet, the way twigs and branches combine with moss and lichens to form a dense mat of living softness. Everything here jostles for space, egged on by lots of water falling from the sky. I just like to notice the details, such as how the sky color reflects off leaves, deep earth colors compete with each other, grays and greens combining from sky and foliage.

I put this in a custom mat and hemlock frame. It’s 12″ x 12″ outside measurements. If you’d like this painting, please email me at larry@larryeifert.com.  No gallery commission, so this one is $175 framed as you see it with a bit of postage added on.

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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post

2018-4 Olympics Spring Runoff – Harlequin Ducks

I’m back with new stuff! This new painting is 7″x 10″ acrylic on canvas. Framed as you see it, overall size is about 14″ x 17″. Without gallery commission, I’m offering it here for $195 framed plus some postage.

We see harlequin ducks here in Port Townsend all winter, hanging out along the waterfront and sleeping on rocks. Usually they’re mated couples, occasionally with a kid or two. In April, they head back up into the mountains, find a rushing river and set up shop for another summer in the Olympics.  They’re very colorful ducks, favorites of ours because of the wild places they live. We’ve watched them dive these wild rivers, jump right into seemingly bone-breaking currents, and in fact studies have found these ducks usually have many mended bones that have probably been crushed by slamming into underwater rocks.

This time of year, the streamside alders in the lowlands are just coming into leaf, but up on these mountain rivers, just a few miles inland, it still feels like winter – leaves and catkins are still bound tight against nighttime cold. I could paint wild places like this until I croak – which I plan on doing.

If you’d like this painting, please email me at larry@larryeifert.com. We have all sorts of payment options. No gallery commission, so this one is $195 framed as you see it.

Thanks for reading this week. I’ll have more soon.
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, Waysides

Dismal Nitch on the Columbia River – new wayside paintings

Click to enlarge in your browser.

Not exactly nature art, but still meaningful to me. Lewis and Clark National Park is at the mouth of the  Columbia River. Part of the park sticks out into the river and was the location (maybe) where the Corp of Discovery stayed for a week, wet, hungry and in a dangerous situation. My task here is to show the event in six paintings that will be placed along this walkway. Somewhat serendipitously, we were here a year ago goofing around and a couple of weeks later this bid to fill up these empty panels appears. I was the only one involved that had actually been to the site.

The most meaningful thing, at least to me is that for part of the research, I used my mom’s book “George Shannon, Young Explorer with Lewis and Clark”, Virginia S. Eifert, Dodd Mead, New York, 1963. What a kick, painting the exact same thing she wrote about 55  years ago, and using her research for my paintings. Keeping it in the family!

Panel bases are already in and waiting. Below is an amazing bronze, probably worth more than our house, that sits right at the end of the loop trail.

Nancy beside the big Corps of Discovery bronze with Dismal Nitch cove in the background.
A section of the bronze, a lost wax casting of the highest quality. I know, I’ve helped do this stuff.

My paintings will be scattered along the shore and tell the story of salmon, Indians, Lewis and Clark and Jefferson’s vision of westward expansion. Of course, I’m sprinkling nature into all of them.

I like to compare Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery with the moon landings of the 60’s. It was the same, really, for these guys to head off into nowhere, without maps, and find a way across the continent in a government-sponsored expedition.

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 stunning photography

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

New Painting Post

A Vibrant Pueblo at Aztec Ruins New Mexico

Click the image to enlarge it.

Quite an interesting project here.  This is one of the half dozen paintings for the National Park Service at Aztec Ruins, New Mexico. Photos I took like the one below of the real ruins today were about all I had to go by – that and Google Earth. The task was to paint this place 1000 years ago when the Indians had migrated from Chaco Canyon and set up a real economy on the banks of the Animas River. I asked the Chief of Interpretation at the park just how much of the land would have been under cultivation: “all of it, every foot”. That sketch didn’t make the grade ‘too jumbled’, and I couldn’t put the many irrigation ditches in because ‘we don’t know where they were’. So, I just made it all up! And tossed in a red-tailed hawk to keep my heart alive.

Here’s a section view of the pueblo painting, today a World Heritage Site. Yes, there are tiny people down there; yes, it’s pretty much the same layout as today but the photo below shows how much it’s changed.  I really love working out these challenges. I was surprised the NPS really doesn’t have a good grasp of what it was really like. Yes, COULD be, yes, it might have been like that – but in the end it was just a big cloud of not much to go on.

Probably the best set of reference photos I took were of the native plant garden just outside the ruins. It had the same native species that would have been in all those gardens, and how they think it was grown. Flooded occasionally, it’s all grown on mounds.

This painting will be made into an outdoor wayside exhibit with some text added. The original art will hang in the visitor center with the others I’m doing. Only one more big one to go. Thanks to Rosene Creative in Jasper Georgia for putting up with me on this one. It’s been fun.

Again, here’s the link to the NEW new puzzle I talked about last week.

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 stunning photography

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