Dallas artist has no hands, paints magnificent portraits of celebrities

Desmond Blair doesn't have any fingers, but that didn't stop him from learning how to write and then how to paint. Now, he paints beautiful portraits using both hands to hold his paintbrush...

Desmond Blair doesn’t have any fingers, but that didn’t stop him from learning how to write and then how to paint.

Now, he paints beautiful portraits using both hands to hold his paintbrush.

“I started painting because I was trying to solve a problem,” Desmond Blair said. “I tried writing with my feet, with my mouth, and eventually, somehow, I figured out how to write with both my hands.”

Then, once he discovered crayons, he found his true passion.

Mr. 3000 from Desmond Blair on Vimeo.

“Like any little kid, I was interested in cartoons and liked animation and figuring out how cartoons work. So, that pushed me on to keep learning how to draw, keep practicing, keep getting better,” he said.

Still, despite his incredible talent, Blair admitted that the road to discovering his artistry was a long and a hard one, especially because he was acutely aware of how different he was from everyone else.

“I was the only one in my school, the only one in my church, the only one in my neighborhood, with a limb difference,” Blair explained. “Yeah, you’re still the kid that doesn’t have fingers, but you can still do everything everybody else can.”

But rather than let his lack of fingers define him, Blair used his past to fuel his future.

“All of that stuff, I just put it on a canvas and that’s my personal reminder to get up every day and kill it. I don’t think disabled, I think different.”

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