I use paintings in a lot of my magical work. I'm currently working on one now, which is a self-evocation piece. The majority of my paintings tend to be used for entity work of one form or another, but I also have used some of them for specific spell work, like when I created a painting for an astrological alignment that was occurring. I find that paintings provide me an opportunity to align myself with particular events, people, etc. and express that alignment as well.
This is a painting I did a while back for my work with Elephant. It's obviously not a literal painting of an elephant, but it is an expression of my connection to elephant and at the same time functions as a portal to connect with the primal energy that represents elephant.
This is a picture that represents the spider queen of time. It's fairly abstract, because it's actually focused on representing the web she weaves, but it works to convey that web as well as provide a gateway to it.
This is a painting I did for Bune to thank him for his aid in my wealth magical workings. It's his goetic seal, but it's personalized because of the painting. Any work I do involves using this painting.
As you can see paintings are an important tool in my work. I find that the creative expression puts me into the right frame of mind to do magical work, and that the space I create via my paintings is useful for shaping the magic I need to do. Do you use any art in your magical workings, and if so how?