An unusual painting

      I am going to tell you Doug Landis' story. Doug has never had a passion for the drawing but after his accident his life changed. He loved working with his hands, especially in wood an metal but now because of his accident he can't do it any more. His accident left him quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. Doug wanted to do anything more after his accident, he stayed at home in front of the television so his brother challenged him to draw putting a pencil in his mouth. At the beginning Doug drew only forms or lines and he improved details, little by little. He spent a lot of time to arrive at this result. His accident highlighted his talent. He is a self-taught artist.

When he draws he has only the pencil in his teeth, it's his neck which does all of the work. To finish a drawing he spent from 40 to 400 hours and more, depending the size of the image and the amount of details. At the beginning, for many years, he abused his neck by working too many hours, (sometimes 6 and 8 hours), without taking a break, so during years he began having some problems by controlling his pens.
He earned a M.F.A in Motion Graphics at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, the school founded by Walt Disney.

He draws particularly endangered animals.
To create larger images and to do the animals justice, he began to draw on images upside down. To draw is a means for Doug to release himself, to be able to do something alone without help what he can never do for others things in his life because of his creeping paralysis.




      I think it's important to interest in a creative activity because thanks that, we can feel release, we can make something which looks like us, which belongs us and which remembers us whom we are and what we are capable.