Tag Archives: Port Townsend

Murals

Shoreside Art for Fort Townsend State Park – Healthy Shorelines

Click to enlarge.

Behind the scenes here in the studio I’ve been working on two outdoor wayside exhibits for my local park, Fort Townsend State Park. I was commissioned before for a painting for this lovely place several years ago, an old-growth forest mural that’s installed on the green near the campground.  This time it’s the beach area of the park where they’re removing tons of rock and shortening the landing to make it more ecologically healthy. A few months ago I received the award to create two outdoor panels that will be installed when the heavy equipment leaves.

This panel tells the story of why all those giant boulders are being removed, that healthy shorelines are created by eroding bluffs and not rock walls. Erosion brings fresh sand and gravel to the beaches – rock walls stagnate the process – and young salmon like overhanging branches and leaves. This may not be the final version of the text, but it’s close to finished. It’s a difficult subject to try to illustrate – erosion, beachside house without retaining walls, logs on the beach and all the critters: guillemots, herring, crabs, seastars, kingfishers and the rest.

I have an interesting history with this park. It was the place I camped when I first came to Port Townsend in 1973, over 40 years ago. I remember it as one of the best campgrounds I’d ever seen – and it still is. I also remember the showers were the very first I ever had to pay for – 10 cents a shower. I was outraged! The costs have changed, but that wonderful campground is still there – but now I live right behind the park.

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

Posts about other stuff

“Thriller” -My Little Sculpture Project

Click to enlarge

My life is brim-full of four things: Nancy, painting, hiking and sailing. The Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival begins tomorrow  and through the weekend, and we’ve been in it many times with various boats. With a fresh coast of Doris Day-green deck paint, a friend thought I should post something about my on-going sculpture project, the smallest sailboat I’ve ever owned called “Thriller”, a 1959 Lightning #7108. If you’re in the festival, drop by and say hi. We should be along the outside of one of the lineal docks.

If you’re not heard of this festival, Port Townsend’s population triples this weekend when 300 classic boats come to town. It’s quiet a scene, with workshops, races, music and food – and a Sunday Sail-by with hundreds of boats from canoes to giant schooners.

Click to enlarge

This boat: amazing construction above and beyond what most Lightnings look like, Thriller was built by the Livingston Boat Shop in Northport, Michigan for the grandson of Kroehler Furniture Corporation owner – a rich-kid’s boat. It’s 56 years old. Much of the restoration was done by the previous owner in the Bay Area, but I’ve finishing it off, made the rig better and the hull ‘bright’. Almost all the wood is original, including the mahogany seats. With a stainless centerboard now (the original would have been cast iron) and rigged for single-handed sailing, my three-season routine is to spend a joyful couple of hours in late afternoon on Port Townsend Bay, joining the guillemots, auklets and seals exploring the best place I’ve ever sailed.

See you at the Festival!

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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 here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website. Her books are now becoming available as Amazon Kindle books.

Interpretive Art, Nature Art, New Published Story

Caspian Tern – My 48-North Story for August 2015

This month’s sketchbook and published story in 48 North magazine is about Caspian Terns. These few summer weeks are the only times I see these birds while I’m sailing about Port Townsend Bay. Actually, I almost always hear them first, then spot these big guys, and since I try to paint what I see, this was an easy choice for August.

Here’s the story:

This is a sound I hear often on quiet summer sails. Kaaaaarr – like a smoker attempting to clear a raspy throat. I instantly know that sound, and always turn and look up to find the hacker. Then, here it comes, flying fast and high, head down studying the water for a vague shape that indicates dinner. Seeing this, I know two things: it’s summer, and the Caspian Terns are back! I watch as the fast and effortless white bird glides past. Then, fish spotted, it goes into a corkscrew spiral, then into a dive and fully submerges – out the tern comes and quickly takes off with young salmon in mouth (unlike similarly sized gulls that are unable to truly dive).

Most Caspian Terns in Washington nest at the Columbia River estuary, and after family duties are over, both young and parents spread out to spend the summer fishing along the coast and into the Salish Sea. Their numbers are expanding, mainly due to dredged materials that offer new nesting islands, and since terns have a fondness for young salmon – well, you see the problem. Dredge the Columbia River estuary and suddenly you get more birds, the birds eat the salmon, we’re spending millions trying to save salmon. Some Caspian Terns in Washington are medium-distance migrants, wintering on the coast of California, while others travel greater distances, wintering as far south as Colombia and Venezuela. But between now and October when these elegant birds head south, I’ll enjoy them here very much indeed.

Larry Eifert paints and writes about wild places. His work is in many national parks across America – and at larryeifert.com.

Direct link to the article

Larry

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Point Wilson Light – A New Painting

Click image and it should enlarge in your browser.

Still available for $1750, framed.

Lots of very low tides recently, and this view (at least to me) of our local lighthouse never disappoints. This is a fairly large painting, 24″ x 48″ acrylic on canvas, and framed right now as you see it (but we can change that for you).

I can also change the frame to this one, a hemlock simple and varnished.

The most interesting thing about this place is not that it’s a beautiful spot right here in my town, but that it’s the very point that divides the Strait of Juan deFuca with Puget Sound, a direct connection to the ocean that’s about 90 miles northwest of  here. It’s real ocean environment here on the west side, with a cooler and wilder ocean with kelp beds, real waves and a feel of the north. East of the lighthouse, just a few  hundred yards from here, it’s Port Townsend Bay, Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound – a vastly different place with sheltered bays, a calm and collected environment where most of the people around here live. They say the richest and most interesting locations are ‘edge’ places, just like this. I love it!

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 48″ and $1750 our price, not gallery price. Outside edge of the frame is about 28″ x 51″.
This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Song Sparrow study

A new painting today, a small study of one of my meadow-buddies – an LBJ (Little Brown Job – as a very skilled birder once referred to them once).

Song sparrows are fairly common little birds, but their spirit in singing makes up for a lack of rareness. I think I remember reading that there are something like 50 separate races of these guys across America, and each bird can know up to 1000 variations of it’s song. The one common thread for all of them is that the song, no matter where it’s singer lives, ends with four notes resembling Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 opening, TA DA DA da. And so there’s your nature class for the day. Nancy says I cannot go an hour without attempting to teach something to someone! Okay, I admit it!

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.  I also have traditional oak frames.

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.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

Hooded Merganser study

2015-3-Hooded-Margansers

“Stick it on the paper, hard and fast, as fast as your brain can move the pencil and brush. Don’t think about this, just do it!”

Today, a little watercolor that isn’t for sale, but is part of another project – and I liked it enough to show it around. If art is simply reflecting life, this little male Hooded Merganser could have been painted several times this past month. We’ve been seeing several courting pairs in the Port Townsend Boat Haven marina on hikes through town, and we watch as each male is circling, rearing back, showing off his Mohawk to a potential lady-love. Later, they’ll find a nest hole up one of our local wilderness rivers like the Dungeness and set up house.

Not so many lines, a dash of color, and you get a Hooded Merganser.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post, Wildlife

Rufous Hummingbird Looking for Spiders

Rufous-Looking-Spiders

Click to enlarge in your browser.

Just a new painting that could be happening right outside my studio window, but isn’t. We have several Anna’s Hummers wintering over nowadays – enjoying our warmer winters. I often see them flying among the branches, carefully checking each bit of moss, each crook and corner, then a quick snatch-up of a hapless spider for lunch. The other hummingbird species commonly here is the Rufous, a reddish-brown job like this painting, but for some reason these tiny birds are NOT over-wintering. Instead, just like forever before, they fly off to Mexico or Costa Rica (where we all want to go this time of year). It’s obviously cheaper and safer for these little guys to stay home and dine on spiders and mites, but so far they don’t do it (so I painted one as if it did). Makes us think it’s spring already.

Rufous-Looking-Spiders-framed

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 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.

Thanks for reading this week. You might send this to someone who you think would appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up for my  weekly posts. I’m trying to expand my list. An email with their email to me will work too.

Thanks for reading this week, and enjoy the last of 2014.

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.

New Painting Post

Once a Logging Road

Old-Logging-Road

 

First, I’d like to apologize for the extra posts some people received a few days ago. Fuse blew in the studio, computers crashed, amazingly the post in question was duplicated 32 times and began sending the mailing list out. What a mess. I try not to overstep my welcome.

So, back to this new painting: Imagine giant 80-ton log trucks rumbling down this little road. Must have been a nature-nightmare, but now it’s about as serene as it gets for cutover forest, an occasional big tree still left here and there. We’re lucky enough to have a few of these big guys here at our place, standing beside the old haul-road like overlords sweating they might be next. But, thankfully, industry is gone and we’re making sure it doesn’t come here again any time soon. I like the way the sun falls on the road, like little searchlights.

Old-Logging-Road-framed

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed. Outside edge of the frame is about 12″ x 15″.
The 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.

Thanks for reading this week. Send this to someone who might appreciate what I’m painting and tell them to sign up. I’m trying to expand my list. An email will work.
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.

New Painting Post

The Top of Our Hill – a new painting

Top-of-our-hill

Sorry, this is sold.

About two minutes from my studio, our road drops to the Chimacum Creek Estuary. When we moved in here, we asked what was ‘down there’ and were told simply, ‘oh, some water, a few trees, it just deadends into the forest’. Little did we realize there was a place worthy of park-status, and we’ve loved it ever since. Salmon, herons, kingfishers, Nancy recently spotted a mountain lion almost exactly here.I’ve painted the road many times, but never with the warm glow of fall, so here’s an warm fall-color rendition. Recently, our local Land Trust just bought some of it, saving this place for us and everyone else.

Top-of-our-hill-framed

* Click images and they should enlarge in your browser.

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed. Outside measurements are about 12″ x 15″.
The 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.

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.

New Painting Post

Wilson’s Warbler Study

Wilsons-Warbler

This painting is still available as of Tuesday, August 26 at 8am PDT. Email me if you’re interested. SORRY, IT’S SOLD.

We have a little pond, an important water source this time of year for all sorts of wildlife – squirrels, deer, probably bear and bobcat, our local cougar – and these little summer warblers tend to hang there too. This male was flitting around near the little waterfall I contrived to make the water unstable for mosquitoes, and watched him as he got himself soaked with a misstep. I thought it a might be a nice painting (before he got soaked).

Wilsons-warbler-framed

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed.
The custom frame is included, and has a triple mat and glass. Shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.
Email us for details.

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.