Tag Archives: Wildflowers

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

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

Picnic table painting

Nice fire in the campground, our ancient folding chairs awaiting. The famous ant tablecloth, a real red-cedar old-growth table. Notice the details: painting, brush can, funky Richeson paint tray, artichoke can for water, tablet with reference photos, little pencil sharpener for those wonderful Dixon black wood pencils that feel like the carbon has oil in it – brae and crackers, glass of red. I only stopped because it was getting too dark to paint in this old forest. 

And then the painting that’s appearing. This one is part of the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center project and is 12″ high and 330″ wide when it’s installed. It’s being painted on a roll of polypropylene Yupo tree-free paper that I can roll out to where I’m working on it. I don’t know, why go home until October?

And what are we doing the rest of the time? Section hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail is part of it. Avalanche lilies and bear grass in bloom and still some snow drifts to navigate. We just have to make sure they’re all okay.

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.

Murals

Spring in a Vanishing Ecosystem – a new painting

Click and this will enlarge in your browser

Two new wayside panels went off to the fabricator this week. Here’s my favorite. Both are 24″ x 48″ and will live their lives right here on this lovely bit of nature called Nasse’s Prairie on Whidbey Island, Washington. Part of the Whidbey Island Land Trust’s rather heroic efforts to restore this bit of natural prairie on the Admiralty Inlet Natural Area Preserve where some extremely rare flowers live. In fact, golden paintbrush is here and is only found in twelve places, two right here on this prairie. The original painting is 24″ x 48″, acrylic on hardboard. Thanks, everyone at the Land Trust, but especially Mark, who helped me in delightful ways and never once got ‘postal’ on me.

And here’s Nancy with her pack full of camera gear taking the reference photos for this painting. Looks like I got the colors about right in the painting above.

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

Where Is This? A Little Travel Quiz

Yuming-Yang-commission

Private commission, sold. Click the image and it’ll enlarge in your browser.

This week it’s a test for those Northwest-Coast-hikers and lovers of all things rainforest and wilderness coast. Where is this? Big wild beach, sea stacks, big river coming down from snow-covered mountains, old-growth forest. Nope, not Canada. There are some tiger lilies, a few lupine and false soloman seal to round it out. But where is it? Get it right and I’ll send you a free park jigsaw puzzle of your choice.

 

This is a commission for a buyer of mine who lives in Texas. Used to live here in the Seattle area, loves the Northwest, but is now stuck in a place so unlike the Northwest he’s been purchasing my paintings to remind him where his heart really is. Thanks, Yuming, it was a lot of fun.

And 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.

Murals

A New Painting of a Summer Prairie on Whidbey Island

Summer-Prairie-5

Just a couple of small changes and I’d call this 24″ x 48″ painting a wrap. This is the seventh image for wayside exhibits at the Admiralty Inlet Preserve, a place of rare beauty just across the channel from Port Townsend, Washington. The Whidbey Camano Island Land Trust has been commissioning me for a series of outdoor exhibits, and this one speaks of the mid-to-late summer natural prairie area and their efforts of being land stewards.  It’s been many decades since fire has been used to revitalize this place, so that’s what the smoke is at the top.

Sheehan_Prairie

SAM_2353

And here are a couple of reference photos showing what it really looks like. Top photo by Mark Sheehan, bottom one by me. Imagine trying to accurately paint this complex landscape. It was a challenge, but I think I fairly well got it. It’s one thing to just abstract it up and toss in a bunch of grass and sedge stalks, but quite another to figure out individual species and how it grows. Patience, I guess, or optimistic enthusiasm that I might be able to figure it out! 

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

Whidbey Island Prairie – Spring and Early Summer

Spring-prairie-progress

Work in progress: a new painting on it’s way. Click the image and it should enlarge in your browser.

Unveiling of an almost-finished new project today. I’ve been working on this for some time and it’s closing in on completion. Thought I’d toss it out for comments. I still have some bit to go, like adding another layer of closeup grasses and sedge, refining some of the flowers and critters – just tightening it up.

Nancy
Nancy at the prairie – pack strapped on full of camera gear for reference shots.

This is the sixth painting for the Whidbey Camano Island Land Trust and it will eventually be an outdoor wayside panel “planted” in a piece of rare natural prairie they’ve recently acquired. It’s right along the bluff in the Admiralty Inlet Natural Area Preserve – and in the background you can see Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula. So what’s the big deal here? It’s rare natural prairie, yes, but also a place with some very interesting and rare plants, like the Golden Paintbrush. And the site is only one of a handful where this beautiful plant grows. While it grows here naturally, the Land Trust is actively adding thousands of new plants or all types to jump start that’s already here. It’s a massive undertaking I’m continually impressed with – and I can’t even mow my own grass on a timely basis.

Nancy1
At the plant nursery where the Land Trust is supplementing thousands of new plants to help the prairie regain its original ecosystem. It’s a long haul that will take years.

This is the first of two of these prairie paintings. Stay tuned – I’ll send out photos of this one upon completion, and keep you in the loop for the second. It’s a very fun project for me.

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 Way Trail

Obstruction_waytrail

Sorry, it’s sold.

Clicking either image should enlarge in your browser. 

It’s called “The Way Trail” because it’s not a normally-maintained path. The best trails are way trails, and it’s another from my alpine experiences this summer. That’s the Bailey Range in Olympic National Park, meadows around Obstruction Point and near the little lake we call “Lake Nancy” (since it’s not named on any map, we’re calling it this after you-know-who).  We were up there recently and watched the sky turn orange before sunset, which seemed to match the late-summer paintbrush still in bloom at our feet. It was a soft memory, the kind I love to paint.

Waytrail-framed

This ORIGINAL painting is varnished acrylic on linen canvas, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed.
I have other frames if you’d like and shipping adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print.

And, I still have last week’s painting available and will give a discount if you buy both. See last week’s here. All the other eight I recently posted are sold – sorry.

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

Royal Basin – The Upper Trail

Royal-Basin-Upper-Trail

Sorry, it’s sold.

Another original painting in this current series of Olympic Mountain images. This has been an amazing summer of backpacking and day-hiking for us, and memories of some of it are reappearing in my studio. It’s been many years since we’ve been in the mountains so much, and we’re enjoying it as long as it lasts into the Fall. These paintings are like a fond memory, which, I think, makes for good art. They tell stories back to me of places I’ve found and love.

 

Past Royal Lake, ‘up the hill’ from where we live, the main trail goes upslope through an open, flower-studded forest before it reaches alpine meadows. It’s about 7 miles and 3500′ uphill from the trailhead, so it sure isn’t a day hike. I love this gentle area and wish I could return every time I think of it. Early morning, long shadows, hints of the jagged Needles on Gray Wolf Ridge in the background. For me, life doesn’t get any better than this. As I recently heard someone say, “There a LOT of God up there”.

Royal-Basin-Upper-Trail-framed

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed.
The custom frame has a triple liner and glass, and if you want to swap this frame out of another, we can also do that. 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

Little Tarn – Bailey Range

Lillian-Tarn-2

We hiked along this slope, in and out of little groups of snow-stunted hemlock, and after awhile this stunning view appeared. The Bailey Range beyond, little tarn full of quiet reflecting water, alpine edge-of-the-forest where the mountain hemlocks group together to withstand some pretty harsh winters. Two big Cascade frogs sat in the water watching us, as if we might be frog-hunters, which we are certainly not. I posted another little alpine tarn painting on the last blog, and it’s found a home a very long way from Olympic National Park – and its new owner wishes differently. That painting touched something, so this one might do the same. Hands off, Yaming, let’s let someone else have a chance.

What I’m endlessly enjoying with these subalpine painting studies are the positions of the graphic elements, the snow-slimmed trees, the freeze-shattered boulders, little bits of water that are always arranged in flawless designs. I think I’m drawn here for another reason too, that of seeing a landscape unaltered in any way by us – an increasingly rare thing these days. These rock gardens look like a master gardener has been here, but the caretaker is Mother Nature, the only real master gardener.

Little-Tarn-framed-2

And here’s what you get – if you’re interested:

This ORIGINAL painting is acrylic on board, 6″ x 9″ and $145 framed and ready to hang. A triple custom mat, framers glass, a nice cherry custom frame. 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.