Tag Archives: tribal mural.

Commissioned paintings, Murals, National Park Service, New Painting Post

San Juan Island NHP – the final story

April 14, 2022 Brush Man

I wanted to post this since I’m almost at the end of this long-running project. This is being installed shortly in the new visitor center, San Juan Island National Historical Park, Washington State. Two murals and 18 other pieces of art, this was all started in November 2020, 530 days ago as of April 14. These things take time, patience and ‘keep smiling, this can’t go on forever’. (all images should enlarge in your browser, and you’ll need that for a 35-feet painting.

Above is my original concept sketch, drawn on a piece of writing paper and placed in the plans (that weren’t even finished yet). This was for EDX, the designer and a wonderful company in Seattle I truly enjoy working with. Below, you can see the expanded version, bigger paper, more details I researched using Edward Curtis historic photos for references.

You can see how these things progress, adding detail at each stage.

Then we realized a wall with my second mural would block the left side, so I moved things around. Same content, just in different places.

And then, just like that I painted it. The fabrication contract was won by Capitol Museum Services near Washington DC, and I was on the bid as the artist that would, in effect, finish the same project I had started months before! The park would have preferred color references first for the painting, but I just went for it. I painted it half size, cut it in pieces so I could scan it, which was done in 110 individual scans on my flat-bed, then pieced together on my computer. I wonder how many artists in this country could have done all this ‘in house’?

And below is the wall it’s going on in the new visitor center, 35 feet wide by 17 feet tall. My second mural of the prairie is going on the wall to the left.

And here’s the other mural, a current scene of the park’s prairie.

A long and winding road, isn’t that what life should be. This one made me thankful I’m still doing this, a straight and narrow path of painting American nature at its best.

More soon. Stay tuned. Feel free to pass this around. People seem to enjoy seeing my process.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

Larry Eifert

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Commissioned paintings, National Park Service, People Paintings

American Camp mural progress report

February 1, 2022 Brush Man

One man with a brush! One brush stroke at a time! (these blow up in your browser to see details)

Personally, I think there must be an easier way to pass the time in my 70’s, but here I am none-the-less – cranking away on a super-complex wall mural in my studio. I’d have to say this project sure is fun and a real challenge, and keeps my brain about as sharp as it can be. I’m just glad I took physics and higher math in high school.

This is being painted half-size for a 35′-wide x 17′ tall wall in the new visitor center at the San Juan Island National Historical Park near Friday Harbor, Washington. Same project, I finished the first one, a big prairie ecosystem painting. This is a bigger thing by far. This is the entire side wall of the building, and has all sorts of stuff complicating things, wall plugs, fire alarms, a door, a reader rail with tribal artifacts – makes me dizzy just trying to work it out.

What’s Going On?

This scene shows the summer gathering on the prairies at South Beach and Salmon Banks in the San Juan Islands, where many tribes would gather in late summer to fish and dry salmon, dig and roast camas bulbs and lay in winter stores. The buildings were temporary. This went on for thousands of years and so the painting is set in a pre-iron, pre colonization time, maybe 500 years ago. So far, Nancy has been the model for almost all the people. I think there are about 30 of them. Some facial features I found online in the Curtis photo library, some I took from modern tribal gathering photos but just slimmed everyone down. This was also pre-refined sugar and wheat times.

So how is this installed?

I’ll do the sky as a separate painting using a car paint sprayer, scan and photograph all of it, piece it together into on giant digital file. Then Capitol Museum Services in Manassas, Virginia will put it on vinyl and up it goes (thankfully, I don’t have to do that part). I’m just the guy with the paintbrush.

More soon. Stay tuned. Feel free to pass this around. People seem to like seeing my process.