It's never to early to find the perfect gift, now is the time to order commissioned portraits for holiday gift giving.  For this holiday season I am going to be doing a limited number of commissioned portraits and pet portraits.I think the most special gift you can give someone is a painting because it's handmade, extremely special, one of a kind and it's something that is going to last forever.  I would be thrilled  and honored to paint something extremely special for you. I am going to be doing a custom 8 inch by 8 inch painting on cradled wood panel with free shipping.   I am only doing a few of these this year so please order early.  If you have any questions please contact me at erikaleesears@gmail.com. How it works: 1.  Purchase your painting. 2.  I will contact you with information and details that I need in order to complete the work. 3.  The painting gets mailed out. ...
This weekend I went thrifting and I had such a great haul.  Such a good haul that when I came home, Tim asked me what I was doing with all of this junk.  :) One of the things I am always looking for when thrifting is storage solutions or some type of basket solution because even though I love old things- I don't like a whole lot of clutter. I found this at an estate sale for a couple of bucks and thought this would be perfect storage solution for Nora's books. We go to the library at least once a week and she loves to pick out her own books.  She loves reading or at least pretending to read and I have caught her a few times flipping through my books and reading. Since library books are generally hard backed and coated in plastic- it seems like they take up more space then regular books and I had the books stacked on an end table but it just seemed like they were getting in the way and the stack was getting larger and larger. This is an old magazine holder I think from a...
I can not believe I almost done showing you all of my paintings for the Big 400. It is seriously my favorite art show that I look forward to every year.   I always paint a few vintage still life and they are usually my favorite because I love going on the hunt for old things. I envision each vintage piece has some sort of past life and an amazing story behind it like a secret story that I will never really know.  I think what draws me in most about painting clocks, typewriters, and radios is that they are every day items that really marks the time period of when and sometimes where they came from. I have been thinking a lot about thrifting lately and where I live Portland, Oregon- thrifting is extremely competitive because people love old things here.  So competitive that I have heard of people starting fights and other people getting banned from even going into estate sales.   I generally thrift for things in the 1960's or older which if you go to a thrift stores here you pay t...
Content and/or other value provided by our partner, Target. One of my favorite times of the year because I get to be around my whole family! We are all a little spread out among a few different states and thanksgiving is one of the few times of year that we all manage to be all under the same roof.   Even though it tends to be a bit of zoo because there are so many of us and pets included! I love having my family all around me. One of our biggest traditions is that all the ladies huddle in the kitchen working on their specific dishes and I since I am the youngest I am typically the official taste tester which I have to say is the best job ever. My other big job for thanksgiving is being in charge with setting the table and getting all the forks and knives in a perfect arrangement and I always seem to second guess which side the fork goes on. Since I am in charge of the table-scaping I always make a big effort in coming up with something new at the table each year to mix it up and...
When I was a little girl, my mom and I would always be canning or preserving things from our family garden like corn, green beans, pickles and of course my all time favorite pickled beets. Over the summer I seem to have been wanting to get back into canning and preserving things especially since my parents have a pretty large garden that I am constantly taking vegetables from and we also love the farmers market. There is nothing better then fresh local ingredients- so why not learn and get better at canning and do more than just jelly. I have been going the last couple of months to the Portland Preservation Society which is a group that gets together once a month and swaps their latest home made goods.  So if you made a ton of pickled beets or maybe made a ton of peach jam then you can trade for delicious goodies. I have to say I have gotten some amazing things in the swaps such as Kim Chi, smoked salmon and fig mustard.  The Kim Chi was so good that Tim has been pestering me to ...
I think this is my favorite camera painting to date and usually my favorite vintage cameras are the minty or turquoise ones. Sometimes I change the color in the painting to make the still life a shade of blue or green but this time I wanted to keep that beautiful candy apple red. This is a vintage 1950's Imperial Mark XII with flash and I love collecting old cameras but never really used them.  I have a DSLR camera, my Iphone and a mini Instax that I use but never really starting using actual film cameras.  I know the mini Instax is technically film cameras but it's not really old.  I recently picked up an big old Land Camera at an estate sale and I have the itch to take it out and give it a whirl.  I don't think I have used actual film in an camera since maybe college, which seems like a long time ago.  I remember my very first camera that my mom bought me it was one of those long skinny cameras in hot pink and I was totally embarrassed by it because all the other kids h...
Have you seen the documentary Salinger yet? I watched it over the weekend and now all I want to do is re-read all of J.D. Salinger books or I should say all of Jerry's books.  I think my first memory of even hearing about JD Salinger was when I was in 8th grade and the school was making us read Catcher in Rye. Yes making, I've always loved books but some of those books in school I could barely keep my eyes open to read them.  To be honest, I don't really remember that much of the story other than it was about a coming of age story and it was set during World War II. I don't even remember loving it or hating it but chalking it up to a book that I read in school. This documentary is about putting together the pieces of J.D. Salinger's life because with the fame of his book Catcher in the Rye, he started to withdraw and hide from the spotlight.  His fans would drive 100s of miles and wait outside of his gate of his home just to try and meet him or even get a glimpse ...
I think you can tell a lot about a book especially when it's good when the cover is curling back away from the book because it has been rolled so many times from lounging and reading, which happened to my copy of this book. I just finished reading Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. I've actually heard mixed reviews about this book, one friend told me it was a little on the dark side and another said it was an intense read. I think what drew me into this book is that its about a woman who hikes alone on the Pacific Crest Trail.  The PCT is a hiking trail that goes from the Mexican border all the way up to the Canadian border, and there is also a counter part on the opposite side of the United States called the Appalachian Trial.  I actually had a friend who hiked the PCT recently and it took her about 5 months, but most people do parts of it because it is quite a journey and lots of preparation.  In the book she didn't do the entire tri...
Happy Monday! I had such a busy weekend and am actually looking forward to the routine of the work week. I know sounds crazy- a person looking forward to Monday but sometimes the weekend just get to full.  Over the weekend I helped and went to the PNW Holiday Brunch Meet up .  I was in charge of organizing the goodie bag which is obviously my favorite part since I love prizes.  If there is a prize involved I'm totally in.  The goodie bag was pretty great and some of my favorites included sunglasses from Sunglass Warehouse, goodies from Land of Nod and lots of craft supplies which means a lot of DIY things in the near future.  Don't worry I'll share them as they happen. It was this amazing space called Union and Pine which is located in SE Portland which is very old warehouse vibe and there were bloody mary's, mimosas, baked treats and of course there was a photo booth. This painting is of Mary's Club which is a gentleman's club but it's a place that has...