In 2001 John Bramblitt changed his epilepsy medication. Unfortunately his body had a bad reaction to the new medicine and his epileptic seizures got so severe that the damage caused his vision to go from 20/400 (double the limit for legal blindness) to complete blindness. While John maintained light perception he was no longer able to see shadows or color. Strangely, it wasn’t until John lost his eyesight that he started to paint. Below you will find some of John’s amazing paintings along with insight into how he paints. On his website FAQ John goes into tremendous detail about his thoughts on blindness and how it has changed his outlook on life. Be sure tocheck it out if you want to learn more about John and his condition.

1. In 2001 John Bramblitt Went Blind.
A Year Later,
He Began Painting

2. In 2001 John Bramblitt changed his epilepsy medication.
Unfortunately his body had a bad reaction to the new medicine
and his epileptic seizures got so severe that the damage caused
his vision to go from 20/400 (double the limit for legal blindness)
to complete blindness. While John maintained light perception he
was no longer able to see shadows or color. Strangely, it wasn’t
until John lost his eyesight that he started to paint.
Below you will find some of John’s amazing paintings along with
insight into how he paints. On his website FAQ John goes into
tremendous detail about his thoughts on blindness and how it has
changed his outlook on life. Be sure tocheck it out if you want to
learn more about John and his condition.

6. How do you paint without eyesight?
“Basically what I do is replace everything that the eyes would do
for a sighted artist with the sense of touch… The raised lines take
care of finding your placement on the canvas… When it comes to
handling color I typically use one of two methods. The first I used
primarily with oil paints. Because oil paints are made from
different substances they have a viscosity and texture that varies
slightly from color to color. By adding medians to the pain such as
Liquin and paint thinners I can alter the way the paint feels even
more. For example: Titanium White is very thick like toothpaste
while Ivory Black is fairly runny – more like oil. In order to mix a
gray halfway between white and black you simply mix for a texture
that is halfway between the thick and thin paints.”