Tag Archives: Port Townsend

New Painting Post

Backpacks and Art

Catchy happy dance! That’s because of this new yellow device clamped to me – filled with paint brushes and watercolor paper. My new gear from Six Moon Designs arrived and I’m beginning to try some of it out. (top photo of the Elwha River last week with winter water.)

For 2020 I’m being sponsored by Six Moon Designs in Oregon, a family company that makes award-winning ultralight camping equipment. Here’s the pack they sent me recently and this is the first try-out. What better place than where the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail crosses Port Townsend on it’s way between Glacier National Park in Montana and Olympic NP to the west of us. It’s 1200 miles of some of the best scenery in America and it goes right through town. 

I’d have to say, this appears to be the best pack I’ve ever had on my back. How many I’ve had total, I cannot say, but this one is the most comfortable and much of the time it didn’t even feel like it was back there at all. I loaded it up with all the dry gear I’ll be carrying this summer, which means everything except fluids and food, and it came in at about 15 lbs. That’s FIFTEEN pounds for the pack, sleeping bag, cook kit, sleeping pad, TENT and all the rest of the stuff it takes to travel comfortably in the backcountry for a few days.

A decade ago, my fully-loaded pack was about 40 lbs.  I’m in my 70’s now, and the only way I can stay ‘out there’ is by traveling light. Thankfully, the camping industry has stayed with us older people and ultralight equipment is making my life easier each year. I wish I had this stuff decades ago.

This pack is their Fusion 65,  a big pack for me but it’s still just a tad over 3 lbs, or about half of my former ones. It has a variety of shoulder harnesses and attachments to make it fit perfectly – and it does! It also has some thoughtful features, a roll top on the main bag to make it compress and be waterproof no matter how much you cram into it. It has 7 other pockets, enough to divide up your goodies, and four on the front I can get to while walking. Cue the snacks.

So, why is all this about art? For me, a painter or nature, it’s about getting out and staying out in wilderness as late into my life as possible. Day hikes are great, but nothing hits it for me than sleeping in a mountain meadow with the marmots and deer. It’s clearly a spiritual-thing, going to these untrammeled places. We may build churches to go inside where we close our eyes and try to find spiritual meaning, but isn’t it better to find the same thing with eyes open? For me, as it was with Muir and Thoreau, it’s sitting in a mountain meadow. I take my paints or at least a sketch pad, of course, because by running my hand around a page it heightens the experience about 10 fold. I see, really see what’s there – a real meditative pleasure I never get tired of. These days, I don’t believe anyone is too ‘old’ to do this, it’s simply a matter of getting passionate about it – and the rest will happen. 71 years ago, I got that passion right away and it simply hasn’t left. Questions about how a 73 year-old guy does this, just ask.

First solo camp at 2 years. Mom slept in the car but I didn’t know it.

You can also see this post and all the rest coming up by simply adding your email to our list here – right side, down a bit.

Thanks for reading this week.

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.

Washington State Parks, Waysides, Wildlife

Fort Worden State Park panels

Wow, I get to paint something local for a change. And the scenes are local, but these were actually painted on a picnic table on the other side of the Cascades at Lake Chelan State Park a few days ago.

These are two of six paintings for a trailside project at my local park, Fort Worden State Park, funded by the Friends of Fort Worden and state parks. The trail wonders beside Chinese Pond and then into a mixed-age conifer forest. These trail panels will be like a little gallery in the forest. It’s been fun to work on something much smaller than what I usually do. I’ll have more soon.

This second painting shows the pond in winter, Nootka roses without leaves or flowers, green grass and flocks of migrant widgeons. There was discussion of the deer – too close, too big, but if anyone has been to Port Townsend, they’d understand how critical it would be to add this one species – THE species here in town. Love them or hate them, it’s life for all of us here.

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, Wildlife

Spotted Sandpiper

I’ve been painting imaginary scrapes of landscapes for a long time. I find it very rewarding to take a moment in time and build a little painting around it, a memory for me of ‘being there’. This one is actually a streamside rock pile up the Big Quilcene River on the Olympic Peninsula, Olympic National Forest. I remember, it was raining, had glistening rocks, lots of varieties of color and texture, a few bits of wood as well. It was near the old log bridge at Bark Shanty. These are cold waters, so I primed the board with Mars Red to give it all a warm cast. 

The spotted sandpiper is the same, a nice memory for me of bumping into this little guy on a hike. They’re around most Western mountain streams throughout the summer, but head south to Argentina when the snow flies. You might normally think of sandpipers as birds that flock for safety, but this one is always singular. They poke around stream and lake shores, banks and beaches for lunch and have a curious habit of teetering up and down as if it’s lost its balance.

The first time I ever saw a spotted sandpiper was in the High Sierra. I was walking along a meadow bank beside the river above Tuolumne Meadows a few miles south of the campground. What a place! And here was a sandpiper, just meandering along and minding its own business as if I didn’t exist. It spent time, and so did I. Those memories make for good paintings, no matter if it’s decades later. 

This painting is now for sale. It’s framed and the outside measurements are about 24″ x 20″ matted and under glass for $1295 total. Shipping is a bit more. Let me know if you’re interested at larry@larryeifert.com. 

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, New Painting Post

Ozette Loop Trail

Ozette Loop Trail, a boardwalk journey into the green tunnel. Yes, I paint private commissions that interest me – and this one did.

This is a recent commission that traveled across the country. The lovely question: “My daughter and I came to the Northwest to visit family and we hiked the Ozette Loop. Could you paint something to help us remember our fantastic trip?” – or something like that. Anyway, I wanted to share the painting here because, while it certainly IS the Ozette Loop, as anyone who has hiked that world-class trail will agree, it’s actually what I THOUGHT that 6 MILES of boardwalk feels like. It just goes on and on through the green wall of ancient old-growth, cedar, spruce and alder. Sometimes it’s a hand-split cedar boardwalk, sometimes it’s new stuff, sometimes you think you’ll fall through and sometimes even plastic Trex appears momentarily (how COULD they have done that?).

Nancy Cherry Eifert paying attention. One wrong step and a busted knee at least.

There are places where this path is really old, like the section in the photo. You need to watch it carefully, not gaze around at the canopy overhead. It’s a leg-breaker awaiting. Sometimes it’s gravel, but not so much considering it’s 3 miles on each of two sides of the triangle. The middle side, of course, is 3 miles of wilderness beach, boulder and gravel walking down the coast – and the real reason most of us go there. That part feels amazingly remote but it’s really too good to share. It’s a place stories come from. It’s a place to camp, sit beside a beach fire and watch the sea otters play in the shallows. Maybe another hike’s in order next summer.

Thanks go to Jennifer and her family in Connecticut. I got to make a painting for you – and me.

All images enlarge with  a click. Yes, I paint commissions.

Thanks for reading this week – and the entire year for that matter.
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 here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Chickadee and Our Apple Tree

{sorry, it’s sold}

This painting is now available. We have a half dozen apple trees in our little meadow. They were planted by the original couple who built the place, and I’d guess they were set in the ground in the mid-1980’s. All are reaching maturity at 30, and starting to look very artistic with twists and turns, tortured branches and mossy parts. The deer yank on the apples and lower branches and we used to try to fend them off – but we’ll take the deer over apples any day, so now we just enjoy them all.

Our local chestnut-backed chickadees and nuthatches also enjoy the trees as well for the bugs that come in for the fall sweetness, so I wanted to show that in this painting. The original idea was to have an apple or two, fall red and contrasting with the chestnut colors of the bird, but the apples are just too big. So, the leaves took the apples place. I can stand right next to these trees and the birds don’t notice, or at least mind. They’d probably sit on my finger if it had an insect.

Here’s the custom frame and mat for the painting. It’s about 12″ x 15″ on the outside and a triple custom mat. We’re offering it for $195 with a bit of shipping (usually Priority mail). If you’re interested, just email me at larry@larryeifert.com.

And this is one of the branches of this tree, the one by the pump shed. Almost ready to eat, whoever gets there first, the squirrels, deer, thrushes – or us!

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

American Goldfinch – Sunflower

2018-8-25 American Goldfinch

{This painting is sold}

A new painting. A little story to go with it. We have American Goldfinches here in our meadow that come to the seed feeders. Red squirrels, gray squirrels and Townsend’s chipmunks are here as well. Some get a mouthful of seeds and run over to Nancy’s summer flower pots – bury them for some later meal – first-rate horders. Some seeds grow, most don’t, but of course Nancy doesn’t uproot them – every plant gets a chance around here.

Recently, a goldfinch decided to short-cut the process, forget the feeder and come straight for the giant seed-grocery.  The sunflower just dwarfed the bird and smaller flowers beneath it, and I think this shows the collective and frantic growing energy of the Northwest in summer – grow fast and die, or head south. Soon, this bird will head for warmer winter digs, the sunflower will be toast, but for now, it was a painting waiting to happen.

2018-8-25-Goldfinch-and-Sunflower-framed

This painting is in a custom pecan frame, has a triple mat and is  under glass. It’s outside measurements are 12″ x 15″. If you’d like this painting, just email me at larry@larryeifert.com.  It’s $195, framed and shipping is included if shipped within the U.S. Yes, freight free, usually Priority Mail!

If you’re Facebook friends with Nancy, you’ll likely notice an almost identical painting on her feed. We painted these two together on the same table – and we’re still married!

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.

Murals, New Painting Post, Waysides, Wildlife

Snow Creek Wayside Panel Installed

I think I probably posted this painting as it was happening a few months ago, but a couple of weeks ago, the good folks with the North Olympic Salmon Coalition finally installed the last panel in this project. This one tells the story of restoring Snow Creek as it meanders down into Discovery Bay,  just a few miles from our studio, and how this valley is on the way to becoming a healthy stream for salmon. Lots of money, lots of time and people power, and a very beautiful place.

Here’s the best part for me: this is right beside Highway 20, the main road from our home to Olympic National Park and the big box town of Sequim. We leave home, drive over the pass beside Discovery Bay, down this hill and there this is, just waiting for me to hate it. (I hate all of them, no big deal). So, I get to drive right by my own stuff on the way to enjoying the pizza bite samples at Costco. What a kick!

In case you want to see how it looks without the frame, here’s the final fabricated panel on aluminum by Gopher in Minnesota. Great job – the best in the country.

Snow Creek Restoration, NOSC

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

Bewicks Wren – Yellow Fern

A new painting.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $149 framed. 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.
Email us for details.

Sorry, it’s sold.

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.