These bright lime green eyes and the markings around them really make this piece!
What was it like to create under the influence of lsd? Did it make you fater, or easier to art, or did it give you an overall good feeling? I'm really curious, been thinking (maybe for too long, so i chickened out) to try out something like that once.

haha, thanks! her tabby markings are so incredibly beautiful and mesmerizing when i'm tripping (heck, even when i'm not!). the variance of light and dark in her coloration is so sharp and defined, and pulsating ribbons of flowing rainbow gradients outline everything so she kind of looks like a technicolor, swirling jungle cat. that's some imagery that i hope to eventually emulate in one of my acid paintings of her, i sort of tried before but it's very hard to translate to paint what i'm seeing during a trip! so instead, i just go crazy making her markings into patterny, colorful shapes.

here's a link to a reddit post i made last year with all of my acid cat paintings (some of which i'll be posting here soon) and some commentary on how it has affected me and my approach to art.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LSD/commen.....cat_paintings/

painting on acid is incredibly challenging because you kind of feel like your brain's in a blender; everything around you is just so distracting and it's very hard to focus on any one thing for any length of time. i'm never able to do any art until at least hour 8 of a trip (trips usually last 8-12 hours, but i generally take 3 tabs spaced out over the course of a few hours so a normal trip for me is 12-16 hours, i make a fucking day out of it). once the crazy visuals and bizarre circular thoughts begin to calm down, and i smoke a little weed, i can focus myself enough to paint. even then, however, it's still a huge battle with myself to pull through and finish a painting. i'm a huge overachiever and perfectionist and whenever i do a painting, i spent an absolutely stupid amount of time on it. these paintings i usually get through in about 3-5 hours, because i know i need to get it done that night while i'm still tripping, and usually by this time i'm getting really exhausted and frazzled so i'm fighting that as well. it's interesting, because it causes me to focus on slapping down the most important areas, and letting other areas be loose and suggestive, which i love because it's something i can't quite manage in my normal art.

here's some copy+paste from an email to an artist friend, who was asking me about this as well:

Acid allows me to be much more impulsive with my paintings, which so far has always turned out well. Also, the feeling I get when I figure out the puzzle each painting holds (I’m not sure how else to describe it, but it always feels like I’m looking for puzzle pieces when I’m doing an acid painting. All the pieces are there to form the ideal image I know I’m capable of creating, I just have to find them and put them in the right spots. I can always feel it “click” when I put something in the right place. I find that when I just let myself go and “feel” it and let my brain do the work, it’s almost like I can’t make a mistake, because there is only one path to the end result) is the best feeling I think I’ve ever felt.
Painting on psychedelics is super challenging, because you have to deal with the physical restraints and wait times of paint. The whole time it’s like a frantic racket in my head and I can’t paint fast enough and I forget what I’m doing between one section of color and the next, so it’s often hard to make it all the way through the painting, but I know I always have to get the painting done while I’m still under the influence because otherwise it just doesn’t feel right. This causes me to do incredibly fast (for me) but accurate work. So at 5am, when I’ve been tripping for 16 hours and I’m about to collapse into a melted puddle of brain, and I mash the last bit of paint onto the canvas, I feel so totally pleased with myself and like I could accomplish pretty much whatever I want to, if I tried. It’s such a cool feeling. I’m super stoked about all of my acid paintings. There isn’t anything in any of them that I can say I wish I did differently. They are how they are, and I put all the puzzle pieces in the right places so there is nothing I could have done better. It’s a huge change from always feeling like I could have done way better.



SO SORRY THAT WAS ALL SO LONG...i could go on and on. it's such an interesting experience. i think most people could benefit from doing psychedelics at least once, especially artists. i definitely recommend it, if you're prepared and in a good place, mentally!

one other thing...on acid, your brain is super attuned to symmetry (a lot of tripping visuals are symmetry and repeating patterns/fractals), so it's amazing how easy it is for me to rough in a head-on face. usually i struggle a long time trying to get the eyes and ears and stuff correct, but it just happens immediately while i'm tripping. (once, i had a cat portrait i was working on while sober sitting at my art desk, and i looked at it during a trip, and was absolutely amazed at how un-symmetrical it all was! i almost completely repainted it the following week.)
same thing with colors, i can glance at what i'm painting, loosen up my vision a little bit, and know exactly where a color or shape needs to go for it to feel balanced. that's a little bit of the "puzzle piece" thing i mentioned.

No, don't say sorry, i'm more than grateful (and surprised) you put so much time into telling me all this! Thank you! All the information you said is very useful; mainly that was, what you explained, what i feared the most: how do i get myself to sit down to actually create and not 'destroy' while tripping.

I, however never tried psychedelics, can relate to this gotta make it in one sit thing, because my art waries a lot too, so one day i draw using bold lines, and the other day i go nearly lineless, and it's not something i can control really (kind of pisses me off, too). So if i were to start drawing something with thin linework but do not succeed on finishing it in one sit, and i get to do it on the next day, 80% chance that i'll redraw the whole thing to give it all thick lines, because i simply can't continue with thin ones is there. This is kind of because of me (too) being a really slow artist, because i try to achieve perfection so badly. And therefore i'm so afraid of giving my work colour, because i never know if it'll look 'right', although i love coluorful pieces like yours! It's good to know this part (in you case at least) goes easier when under influence.

Okay, sorry for rambling, what i wanted to say, is i really appreciate your time in telling me all this, thank you once more again!

I've read what you wrote above (and the kink) too, and i can really understand your feelings, thus going trough it in a sober state all the time, haha. And i'm happy that your cat is ok! :) having a strong bond between human and animal, and in this case, artist and muse too, is an incredibly good feeling! I wish you two the best! And i'm also happy you found joy in illustration again, it's so revarding, the feeling of being able to create, and it giving you confidence! All i can say is i wish you the best in doing incredible work that makes you happy!

I'm curious what the emotional experience was like for you as you were painting these.

honestly, i don't feel much emotionally while painting, aside from the anxiety of wanting to hurry up and be done because i'm so mentally spent (and usually, physically, from spending my entire day laying in weird positions on the floor). the two acid paintings which were hardest for me were both for other people (neither are posted here, yet). the pressure of "having" to do them, instead of wanting to do them, and because i was spending that trip not painting my sweet Gravy (truly my muse, i have done so much art of her, and i like to be able to paint her almost every time i trip so it was kind of a bummer that i was painting someone else's cats!) made it really a fight to get through.
i painted my best friend's mom's cats, and trying to paint both cats in one scene and having already had an emotionally exhausting trip that day ended up with me almost having a mild panic attack because the painting was stressing me out so much, so i had to put it down and finish it later, during my next trip. the pressures of real life are a little too much when your brain is spiraling out on psychedelics, lol.
the other was a portrait of my dealer's cat, and he was leaving that following morning for europe, and i hadn't had the time to trip and paint before i knew he was leaving so i HAD to get the painting done that night. i fortunately made it through, and he came over to pick it up at 6am, right after i varnished it, while i was still sweaty and tripping. on the other hand, it was rewarding knowing i had been able to overcome and finish it in the nick of time!

my reply to the above post has some more info on lsd's effect on my creative process/art, if you're interested.

the three paintings of Gravy i have posted here also show a somewhat interesting emotional state: the first one was when she was still a stray cat that i was feeding on my apartment balcony. she was somewhat feral and we didn't have the bond that we do now. that painting is rather loose, unfocused, cartoony, and more about the color and experience than her, herself.
the second (this one) was after she'd been living inside for a bit, and it's more focused on her.
the third (with the cd shards instead of an eye) was after she was diagnosed with feline leukemia, and the vet told me that i most likely didn't have very long with her. it depicts her ascending to the heavens in a plume of faceted smoke.
none of these paintings were planned, i just pulled a reference picture of her up on my phone, and started painting and let whatever happen, happen. it wasn't until later, thinking about it, that i realized they were somewhat symbolic.

as a side note, her diagnosis was a year and a half ago, when the vet told me i may only have a few days or weeks with her because she was so sick. i spent a good deal of time and money doing research on the illness, finding hard-to-obtain medicines, and doing all sorts of crazy-mom things that i was told may just be a waste of time and have no effect. the last time i had her tested, she came up negative for FeLV, which means she's only a carrier, and it's gone dormant; though it could still return under great stress or illness, she's had almost a complete turn around and is doing wonderfully now!

ooh yes so wonderfull :D
i always wonder how people can do that on LSD ^-^'