Painting with Angels

Chapter 6

Painting with Angels 2012

My new home in North Carolina was a brand-new townhouse. The sunroom had tall windows, and the morning light was perfect for a quiet coffee and meditation. I met a few neighbors who recently moved from New Jersey too. The neighborhood was a gated resort with palm trees and waterways throughout. Residents could kayak or go fishing from a stocked lake, and there were paved bike paths that covered miles of pristine, manicured property. In the center of the development were a private clubhouse, Olympic sized swimming pool, and a gym on the premises. I was in heaven.

I was able to find yoga students on my street who were interested in gentle classes. Once a week, I offered a basic beginner class in my sunroom. I shared my interest in yoga and reiki, made friends, and got cash all at the same time. It was a win-win.

On Sunday mornings, I regularly met my sister and brother-in-law, and we would explore restaurant opportunities for brunch. My niece, their daughter, had recently moved to the area from Atlanta. My daughter came for a few extended visits and loved the nearby beaches. A close girlfriend from New Jersey came to visit me and announced that she was also planning to move to the same development within a few years. She asked me to help her with new home selections and plans for her building project. I was making North Carolina home and connecting with family, new and old friends.

With more free time, I decided to start painting again. The sunroom would be a perfect makeshift art studio. Back in college, I had majored in art history with some studio art experience. I had painted with acrylic type paint, but the drawback with acrylic was it would dry very fast and often had a hard edge to the lines. Oil paint offered a softer blending but was messy. I headed to the local art supply store for new supplies, paints, brushes, and canvases. In the decades of my painting absence, an improved slow-drying fixative arrived on the market to alleviate this dilemma. I purchased a large container of this new medium and headed home to experiment.

I settled in with plastic papers on the floor of my sunroom, laying down a new canvas. As I stirred the loose fixative and poured abstract colors in sections on the surface, the acrylic paints began to flow together in a ribbon of green, blue, and yellow. I added a large dollop of silver tint in the middle. I stirred the silver with a paint stick, shook the canvas to blend, and left the piece to dry slowly by the window. This technique was an experiment with no form or figure planned out.

I left the room and went to the kitchen to make myself a coffee and chat with my daughter, who was visiting for a few days. When she was younger, she also enjoyed the family tradition of arts and crafts. We shared a mother-daughter bonding in this activity. She entered the sunroom to inspect my abstract handiwork. I heard her take a deep breath in the sunroom. “What is wrong?” I asked from the kitchen. “Mom, come here now! Your painting has a full-blown angel in the middle of the canvas.”

After my daughter’s cry to come and witness the angel, I returned to the sunroom. Sure enough, there was a strange image of an angel in the middle of this painting. It looked like a negative photograph with a silver angel being the reverse image burned into the blue-green background. I stood dumbfounded and unable to move. How did this happen? Was it a complete accident, or did some angelic being help me out at the last minute to add a figure to the piece?

My mother loved angels. She often wore small pins in the shape cupids or angels on her jacket lapels. She could see ghosts and other entities like fairies, etc. It was usual for her to talk about her dreams and the beings who came to her at night. Most folks in the family rolled their eyes when she started with her description of angels, but I always listened. She often told a story of when she was a young girl, orphaned, and alone. A guardian angel appeared and gave her love, security, and a feeling that all was going to be ok.

I never saw an angel with my eyes open as my mother had encountered. While practicing Reiki, I became more aware of energy and the feeling of other beings in the room. I often felt tingling and a light magnetic pulling in my hands, which could not be proven scientifically. I would see blurry colors in the shape of figures when my eyes were closed. Occasionally, it seemed like someone would touch my shoulder or the top of my head during a session. With each reiki attunement, I grew closer to these beings in another realm but had no visionary experiences.

Over the next few weeks, I continued to notice strange faces appearing in the paintings I created. Some of these faces looked like my mom’s antique dolls. They would smile or wink in the background of leaves or flowers. Some had elongated heads or fairy-like qualities. It became a game to find them hidden behind branches or clouds. Was I losing my mind? ​I began to believe that I was painting with angels.

I decided to research this phenomenon. I discovered that this type of art was called Visionary Art. Back at the turn of the 20th century, an artist named Rudolph Steiner created a technique called Veil Painting using watercolor paints. Thin veils of color were applied over one another, allowing figures or images to appear. The paint acted as a vehicle for visions to develop miraculously.

I enjoyed painting angels so much; I secretly began to call myself a Visionary Artist. I would close my eyes and let the brush just run away with the colors. There was an energy connection between the colors and the gold or silver touches I would add.

Sometimes after a reiki session, my friends would recount a vision they had seen. I would follow up by painting the images and offering them the canvas.

I was not the only painter who has had these kinds of experiences. Since my visionary angel experience, I have met many others who have had instructions from the higher realms. On one occasion, I casually met another angel artist in a metaphysical shop. She also received messages from the angels as she drew their images onto paper. Like me, the angels came to her unexpectedly with vital information to share. We were here to convey these messages of love from the angels through art and creative endeavors. This experience was the most memorable and magical. No matter what trauma I might have experienced in the past, I found peace and healing by painting angels. I felt grateful for these miracles every step of the way.