Tag Archives: Wildlife

New Painting Post

Mount St. Helens Wayside Panels

Besides all the other stuff I’ve posted here over the past few months, I’ve been working on paintings for some outside panels at Mount St. Helens National Monument. Here’s the first one. Mount St. Helens is about half a day’s drive south of us, and last fall we were up there to have a look. The eruption happened 31 years ago, and the changes since the initial devastation are pretty amazing. Nature is back in a big way, and my paintings will help explain that. When we were here at this overlook at Meta Lake, there was a toad hatch-out, and what appeared to be squirming mud soon defined itself as a bunch of little amphibians. This species, and lots of others, survived the May 1980 blast because they were either in their dens under the snow, under the lake ice, or buried in mud.

I’ll show you the other panels in weeks to come. Learning about and then illustrating the giant eruption and its aftermath has been a fun project. I feel like we know that mountain in a much better way. It’s one of the reasons I continue to do this stuff. And if you’re on the north side Spirit Lake road, look for a little Eifert art gallery as you go – and you’ll learn about it too. Maybe I should put out a map and guide to all these waysides around the country where you can see my work on outdoor panels. I haven’t kept good track, but I’d guess we’re up to at least 400 by now.

These panels are being designed and created by Sea Reach Ltd. of Sheridan, Oregon – a bunch of very nice people. In an interesting twist, I also bid on this project, which Sea Reach won. Not to be left out, I contacted them and pleaded to be involved – and so here I am. No one ever said I was shy and retiring – but you already know that.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Swan Song for Necedah

This should enlarge if you click it. You can also see it on the blog at http://larryeifert.com/wordpress

Just one last post with the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge murals because I think I’ve messed with this as much I can possible can. A month ago there was a beautiful clean and white wall. Perfect! Or at least that’s what I always think at that stage – and then I started painting the darned thing. March vanished, along with the white wall. On the last post I said the reception would be March 6th (tonight 5-7 at Union Bank), and I think everyone knew I was mentally-strained because no one called me on it.

Someone once asked me how I knew when a painting is finished. “When I’ve spent the money!” But that’s not really a decent answer, because the money-thing has never been that much of an issue with me. The real answer might be: It’s finished when I can’t stand to look at it anymore – and after 35 days, I’m at that point, so it’s time for a divorce. As Dan Hicks sang: “how can I miss you if you don’t go away.” Sometimes it takes me years before I can stomach to look at something like this again, but sometimes when I see it again (well, sometimes), I actually like it. Sometimes I look at it later and I wonder who painted it. Sometimes I look at it and wish I could try again. Who knows that this one will be.

Whichever this is, it’s finished so let’s move on. At 130 feet, it’s one of the most complex big walls I’ve painted in awhile and it was a bunch of fun. Thanks, Nancy, for holding the fort, the business, the house, the meals and all the rest together for the month. Oh, and she did a bunch of painting too. I gauged it at 40 days. I finished 5 days less than that, mainly because of her.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. There’s a good essay there on her anniversary of being a runner for 36 years!!

New Painting Post

Necedah Murals – Into the Forest

Yes, I’m into the forest and final week of this project – woo, woo.

Or not! At the moment I feel like I’ve lived for the past month in this beautiful place, surrounded by wolves and deer, woodpeckers and sandhill cranes. Like our own place here in Port Townsend, I know each and every tree, fern and critter – and don’t necessarily want to see Necedah National Wildlife Refuge leave my life – but it is leaving.

WEDNESDAY: 5-7pm FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY (for local readers of this blog)
Nancy and I are hosting a little openhouse this Wednesday evening as a going away party for the painting  as well as a thankyou to the bank for studio space. Wednesday, March 6 upstairs over Union Bank (formerly Frontier Bank) 2200 Sims Way in Port Townsend – from 5 to 7pm. That’s right next to Akamai Art – the best art store in Washington where it’s been so great to walk next door for that next round of #2 brushes.

It’s been an interesting project and it looks like this is going to work. The sketch was 15 feet long, painting is about 40 feet. The final digital imaging will be 130 feet – a far better experience for me than my usual scaffolding – up-down, up-down climbing around like a monkey – process. There are some changes I’d make for the next one, but I’d do it again tomorrow. I just love creating an entire world first in my head and then making it come alive on the canvas. I think it keeps me young, fresh and relevant. I was wondering how my 64 yr-old fingers would survive a rather long month of 6 days a week, but they did just fine. I’ve always heard that painting was an old man’s game – now I’m sure of it.

Our local paper, The Port Townsend Leader, did a very nice front page feature story this week, and you can see it here with some good photos. (thanks, Kathie – you did good)

Thanks for reading this week. Next week I’m back to projects for Mt St Helens, Mt Diablo and the new visitor center at the Schulman Grove of bristlecones. Never a dull moment around here!
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography. She’s been posting some Necedah mural images on her blog too.

New Painting Post

Necedah Wildlife Refuge – Second mural

 

If I have to pick up another paint brush – I’ll just throw up. That’s about the way it is right now. The fingers on this right hand of mine is loose, I’ll say that. And as for how well it’s still functioning, wine probably has something to do with it.

So here’s the second mural completed and ready for shipment. This one is about 12 feet long and 40% of the final size. After digitally enlargement, it’ll be about 29 feet long. What’s that black rectangle you ask? That’s where an underwater diorama exhibit goes. And how long did this one take? Eight days of painting, lots of help from Nancy who’s getting pretty darned good at mud.

And if you haven’t been following this stuff for awhile, this is for the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin. You can see the rest of the progress at the blog listed below. Nancy’s also been blogging about this too and her link is below.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge – Second Painting

Thanks, everyone, for all the good comments of these recent posts. Hope it’s Okay if I don’t answer every one of them. As you can see, we’re sort of busy right now.

While the first painting is at Malone Design in Georgia being scanned and printed at 300%, we’ve now begun the second mural for the refuge in Wisconsin. This one is all wetlands and there’s lots of water and sky, making it qo fairly quickly – at least quicker then the other with all those leaves and miles of grass. I’ve had to do some research on how cattails and bulrushes grow, the details of their rooting systems. Can’t do that in person around here, because it’s spring and there’s LOTS of water in all the local marshes covering them all up, but that’s what field guides are for.

This one won’t be blown up quite as large as the first one, but it’ll still be a whopper of an enlargement at 250% from the painting. It’s an interesting process, but I think I much prefer painting these big wall at final 100% size, even if it takes some ladder work. That way I know what I’m getting when I paint it – there isn’t any vagueness or question about how it’ll look in final form (and I might sleep better at night).

Thanks for reading this week. These both should enlarge if you click them.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Necedah murals – Day 20

 He looks grumpy, but it’s just concentration flowing to that little tiny brush tip!

Click here for a much larger view on the website. 

Far left side still isn’t finished, but we’re getting close. From right edge to the big tree is about 40 feet on the final 3x enlargement. I’m now beginning an entirely new painting equally as long while this section flies to Georgia today for scanning. After that it’ll return for me to finish the left side for that final 24 feet. We were fading a few days ago, but good friend Jan dropped by twice for some professional arm-twisting and muscle rubbing. I felt like a new man!

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Day 2-4 Necedah National Wildlife Refuge Murals

After a  bunch of round-and-round about sizes, measurements and materials, I’ve now begun two larger paintings for the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. Stay tuned for progress reports. These two shots are Days 2-4 on the first painting.

Here’s the deal. It’s a new visitor center at the refuge in central Wisconsin. There are 130 feet of walls that need to show, in an artisitic way, five habitats all woven together, from prairie wetlands to sedge meadows, uplands prairie to oak savanna and finally pine forest. Tallest wall is about 12 feet. Normally, I’d do these on theater canvas and they’d be glued up, but we’re trying something technologically new (at least for me). We’re painting these at 30% of final size on Yupo plastic paper, an ultra smooth surface that’s good for high detail. When finished, they’ll be digitally scanned and blown up 300%. So far, the printed samples look pretty good, and it allows me to paint in a much smaller room, and much quicker – and if the visitor center burns down (which has happened), they can put up a fresh copy.

Thanks so much to Port Townsend’s Union Bank for giving me studio space in a community room. They’ve done this before on large projects and have really helped my painting process. While these two paintings are 30% of final size, I still need much bigger walls than I have here in my studio. Nancy’s down there painting away with me, and she’s helping to speed the process up. So far it’s been fun. The story of Necedah and how it relates to my past is an interesting one, but we’ll save that for another post.

Stay tuned for more soon. Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

New Painting Post

Three Blind Mice

I’ve been working on three projects at once, some of them fairly large, so keeping it all straight has been interesting. Oh yeah, then there’s this blog-thing.

Here’s the setup: Imagine you’re a little mouse family living on the north side of Mount St Helens 30 years ago. Meta Lake is just downhill, still snow covered even though it’s May. Life is good, you’ve been asleep all winter, waking occasionally but certainly not leaving your cozy little mouse den. Your little clan found this neat little hole a mole had dug, and in a little side room you set up shop for the winter. It’s May, still a month from being able to leave for a brief summer of munching and gaining back the weight you lost over winter, when you awake to hear what sounds like a 1000 jet planes landing right on top of you. Well, whatever it was, it passes by.

Well, whatever it was – turned out to be the eruption of Mount St. Helens, and because this little family was underground, it survived the almost supersonic blast. After the snow melts, rich ash and a destroyed forest will make for a rich succession of plants with lots of seeds and grasses. And, unlike the elk and deer in the blast zone, the mouse family will survive.

Such is the job of a naturalist-artist. This little painting will be an inset to a much larger painting showing the snow-covered forest and that big ugly blast cloud just arriving. Fun stuff to figure out.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

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New Painting Post

Magnificent Frigatebirds

This time it’s another graphite and watercolor illustration for John Vigor’s article in Good Old Boat magazine. Magnificent Frigatebirds aren’t new to us, but I never get to paint them – and they sure aren’t around Port Townsend. We’ve seen them while we were camping on the beaches in Mexico, we saw them often while we sailed Ave Mariadown the Baja Coast and up into the Sea of Cortez. Just last year we saw them at Everglades National Park, soaring over the mosquitoes at Flamingo.

These birds are real aerial pirates that never, I mean never, land on water. They soar endlessly along oceanic coastlines even as they sleep. In fact, the only other bird species known to spend days AND nights in flight is the common swift. But being amazingly good at one thing usually means we’re goofy at anything else, and so the frigatebird cannot walk, swim or take off from a flat surface (we’re talking about jumping off a cliff ). Frigatebirds sport a very wicked upper bill that angles down like a fish hook, enabling the birds to latch onto morsels as they fly by, or, they steal it from other birds (chicks in nests included). At 90 inches, frigatebirds have the longest wingspan relative to weight of any bird on the planet. The reddish throat pouch-thingy on males inflates during courtship or while the male is nest-sitting, giving them a rather bizarre look. When I saw a kid (centuries ago) I remember they were called “Man O’war” after the old frigates, which the big birds use to follow for food scrapes.

And you all thought I was just a painter.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

New Painting Post

Painting Some Interesting Wildlife

These past few days I’ve been doing some interesting illustrations for Good Old Boat magazine. Graphite and watercolor, not what I normally do – and that made it all the more fun. Author John Vigor provided an interesting article about sailboat cruising and the birds he’s seen from Western Canada to the South Atlantic and beyond. I know, it’s a fairly broad subject, eh? I was given a pretty broad list of choices to illustrate, so I picked the most interesting birds to me. Above are a pair of tufted puffins, local guys for sure – in fact, this pair could be within five miles of our place.

Next on the list was this little guy:

This is a St. Helena wirebird. St. Helena, if you remember, is in the southern Atlantic and is one of the most remote places on the planet. It’s where they put Napoleon after they named an ice cream for him – and maybe also because he started a war (George, the house is now vacant). The wirebird is the island’s only surviving endemic bird, and having never painted it, I just had to do some research (which is the real fun part of this stuff) and try it out. It’s a killdeer-like plover that does a broken wing act just like our local birds here.

There were more, but you’ll have to wait for the May issue to see them – which I’ll post here if I can remember. It was a most interesting project, for no other reason than in one day I got to paint birds from opposite ends of the planet.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to the online blog this was to.

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Nancy’s website is currently down while we remodel it. Stay tuned.