Tag Archives: Wildlife

Murals

A Mural For The Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge

Click all images to enlarge them. At 38 feet, you’ll need to.

So – a new project is underway. This is for a new visitor center at the Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Tennessee near the Mississippi River. I’ll post the progress in weeks to come, but wanted to at least pass around the sketches for comments – which always help me – even the bad ones. This one means a lot to me because I spent time here as a kid with Virginia on one of her research field trips ( but more about that later).

This installation will be 38 feet long and 8 feet tall, but I’m painting it half-size at about 19 feet by 4 feet – still a big painting. We’ll scan the painting, then it’ll be printed like wallpaper on Dacron. This means the art can be vandalized or the visitor center even burn down and they still have an installation. Since they’re self-ensured, the government is like that. Makes it easier for me to paint, but the brushes get fairly tiny.

Click to enlarge in your browser

Cypress swamps and waterlilies on the left side. This lake was created by a huge earthquake in the early 1800’s when the Mississippi River ran backwards and filled up this bottomland subsidence. Today it’s full of ducks and geese, turtles, fish and muskrats – just my idea of fun. And next, here’s the right side: all red oak forest in a seasonal flooding area. The fun part will be that they want a fall scene, so the cypress will be yellow, red oaks a flaming red/yellow. Add to that a good blue sky and it’s should be flashy – or at least that’s the plan.

Click to enlarge in your browser

Stay tuned, there’s more to come.

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.

New Published Story

Our Lassen Book Goes Into a Third Printing Today

Thought I leave the crop marks and color bars on so you can see the process. Click to enlarge.

Today a newly revised and up-to-date book of ours was delivered to Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. This is our third reprint of their most popular book, and it was fun to work on it again. To tell the truth, I haven’t even looked at it for a few seasons and when I came back to work on it again, I thought it was pretty good. I think there are about 100 paintings of mine scattered throughout, and it’s a very colorful publication. First published in a 2007, Nancy and I spent some fun times here learning about the park.

Click to enlarge. This is the back cover.

It wasn’t the first time with us and Lassen, as I’ve painted a large visitor center mural, did some site guides (the sort you carry along with you as you hike around) and a bunch of other projects. It’s been a long and joyful ride with this place – where I first learned to cross-country ski on the icy park road sometime in the late 70’s.

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.

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 Published Story

Northwestern Crows Published

This was published last month in 48 North magazine for my monthly contribution. We have a pair of these guys nesting in our woods, so it seems appropriate.

Here’s the story: And just why is this guy doing a crow page in a sailing magazine? Because they’re not just crows, a common bird that everyone knows, but a Northwestern crow. Yes, we have our own crow species! Looks exactly the same but smaller, ‘KAWWW’ sounds the same but deeper and hoarser voiced. If you’re on or around salt water in the Salish Sea and north all the way to Alaska, likely the all-black beach bird you’re looking at is a Northwestern crow. Problem is, you can’t be sure because in urban areas they now mingle, mix and interbred – but once you get to the Olympic Peninsula, you can be fairly confident you’re seeing one of these guys.

By far, the best trait you can look for are their clamming skills. Browsing the shoreline wrack for anything edible, they’ll often pick up a live cockle or clam, fly straight up to about 30 feet, change course to level off – and drop the shell to the rocks below. Most of the time the shell breaks on the first try and down they go for lunch. Evidently they level off to see where the shell lands so they can grab it before a gull does. Normal American crows don’t seem to do this, just Northwestern crows. On some beaches, I’d have to say that of birds on the beaches, there may be more Northwestern crows than gulls.

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

Summer Return of the Prairie – a new painting

Last week I posted another outdoor wayside panel – the spring version of this same place. Now, here’s the second panel about summer at the Naas Preserve on Whidbey Island prairie – prescribed burns, summer flowers and pollinators, a real riot of color. They’re both going to be installed at just north of my home in Port Townsend. Not easy making a nice painting with a fire in it, but I’ve actually painted several fire images before for a National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota. This one was much more fun.

These paintings require lots of field trips and research time. It’s the best part of it, with both of us joining forces to figure out details from white-crowned sparrows to goldenrod. Sure, field guides tell me what the thing looks like, but not how they attach to the ground, or how they look in summer when the landscape is drying out, or how does the sparrow grab onto the goldenrod as it’s singing. Here’s Nancy working on some strawberry plants that the Whidbey – Camano Land Trust is growing in a small nursery at the site. Later, I put all these images on my tablet for reference at the easel.

So what’s the point of these outdoor panels? To me, they’re like an an outdoor art gallery. Some trails have a couple of dozen of these panels, and I love to imagine people hiking along enjoying the nature around them but maybe not understanding it. Behold, here’s a nice painting with some words to help them out. While I still sell  paintings to private collectors (who then hang them on their walls, never to be seen in public again), I think I see these outdoor efforts might be a higher calling. It’s public art in the best way, don’t you think?

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.

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

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, Wildlife

Western Tanager study

Western-Tanager

Nancy has put oranges out by the pond for these birds. I think we get the very same pair back each year – after a winter holiday all the way down in Central America. While the female lacks the red head feathers, I’ve read that the male gets them from eating certain insects – along with berries from our cherry trees. We gladly give up our fruit for the companionship of this pair – and so I painted the male on the hunt.

And here’s the frame it’s currently in (and comes with the painting). I think the color is a tad off on the photo. The wood is more blond, painting less blue – I took it on the porch on a sunny day, so things got funky.

Western-Tanager-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. 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

Eifert on the Washington Ferries for the Summer

2015-Getaway-Cover

The Port Townsend Leader newspaper puts out a free summer magazine for visitors, and this issue has a piece of my Mount Rainier mural on the cover. That’s fun for sure, but they also used a bunch of smaller wildlife paintings scattered throughout the inside, making the entire thing sort of an Eifert Gallery in print. These magazines are on all the local ferries and in the terminals, lodging and visitor centers, a nice thing for awhile until I get sick seeing this painting everywhere I travel. Thanks, Marian, for being so delicate when you chopped up the painting and moved a few critters around. Here is the entire magazine online.

And here’s the original painting in the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center, Mount Rainier National Park.

Rainier-installation

I did this painting back in the day when I used to just dance into park offices and offer my services – as if I were somebody. I was cheap and completely unaware of the ‘rules’ of RFQs, IDIQs, funding sources and liability insurance policy constraints. I’d just go in and say “you need this” and they’d say, “sure, we’ll take it out of this fund here in the bottom drawer”.  Now? Well, don’t get me started.

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, Wildlife

Point Reyes National Seashore

Point-Reyes-final

I think some of you will say “wait a New York minute, I’ve seen this.” True, but this week I was in a client’s office looking at my website on her computer and this painting wasn’t there. Embarrassing.  There were posts of progress, of locations last year, the sketch – but I spaced out the posting of the final version. I keep this stuff on my blog/website for reference, like a catalog – and with almost 500 pages it’s a handful to keep track of. So bear with me while I add this one from last year to it.

If you haven’t seen this place, it’s Point Reyes National Seashore just north of San Francisco. A landscape full of atmosphere and history for me (I’ve hiked it, rode a horse through it, sailed by it in my own boat twice). We arrived at Headquarters and asked what they wanted in the painting. The beach, lighthouse, fog, ocean, redwoods, Doug-fir, Drakes Estuary, Tamales Bay, about 50 sq miles of coastal scrub with all the critters. Nothing to it! The painting hangs in the main visitor center, the back of the new park map features it, and now it’s  here.

Finished map and mural.

finished-maps=web

Labels were added on a draft design that wasn’t used.Point-reyes-labels

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.