Painting as a method of altering consciousness | Andrea de Michaelis – Creating my own reality, one thought at a time

Yesterday I wrote that I’d begun the red background owl chick painting in the midst of the out of body experience painting. While waiting on my owl to dry, I began another, shown here to the right. A friend said my new painting looks just like her sister and wanted me to do one that looked like her (and her cat.) I told her that if it ends up looking like someone, that’s one thing but realistic faces are too hard for me to do — the least bit of anything out of place makes it look all wonky. And I do wonky just fine as it is.

I’m flattered friends are asking to buy prints from me and I’m happy to provide them, but I don’t want to turn the art into another form of work. I work enough as it is. My only consideration before starting a painting is: just in case it turns out to be something I want to use for the cover of Horizons Magazine, use a 9×12 or 11×14 vertical canvas, leaving room at the top for the masthead.

Other than that, I’m simply using the art as a fun meditation practice. The finished image isn’t as important as the thought journey I get taken on. It lifts me out of my everyday world and into another place. Like a book for some, a movie or a trip for others. And I’m all about altering my consciousness (through meditation, visualization, creative expression) to see beyond the mundane, turning it into a world full of symbolism and metaphor from which I learn, every day.