Blind artist's painting passion

Portrait of the artist: Lisa uses "mental mapping" to paint

By Malcom Brabant in San Antonio, Texas

A financial analyst who was devastated when she lost her sight has taken up a new career: painting.

Lisa Fittipaldi, from San Antonio in Texas, has created more than 400 works of art.

Her pictures now sell from $2,800 to $10,000 and hang in some of the most exclusive galleries in the United States.

In water colours, I used to differentiate between colours by dipping my fingers in it. So that the pigment of blue is a little bit drier, a bit stickier than red.

Lisa Fittipaldi, artist

Mrs Fittipaldi was robbed of her sight seven years ago by a degenerative vascular disease.

She was a career-obsessed financial analyst and was devastated by her new disability. She had to give up her career, and became a bed and breakfast landlady.

Child's watercolour set

The gift of a child's water colour set has changed her life.

Lisa was given painting kit to lift her spirits

Her husband, Al, gave her the painting kit to stop her feeling sorry for herself.

Even though Lisa had never painted before, a star of the art world was born.

She does not do abstracts, but instead paints images from memories from her travels in places like the Balkans.

She uses a technique she describes as mental mapping to work her way around a canvas, by dividing it up into quadrants.

And how does she find the right colours?

New hurdles

"In water colours, I used to differentiate between colours by dipping my fingers in it," she said.

"So that the pigment of blue is a little bit drier, a bit stickier than red."

She is encountering new hurdles as she attempts to progress from water colours to oils.

Al Fittipaldi: Her work just keeps getting better and better

One dollop of oil paint feels identical to another.

"It's frustrating not to be able to get the colour I want," she said, struggling with the left arm of a ballerina.

"I want it to be peaches and cream kind of colour."

Lisa's husband is still amazed.

"When she first picked up a brush and started doing water colours, I just couldn't believe that this could be happening," said Al Fittipaldi, glowing with pride.

The only way is up

"I guess for a year it used to give me the shivers thinking about it because it was such a hard thing to believe."

"But now I just accept it and we move on with it and her work just keeps getting better and better."

As she curled up on the porch of her clapperboard Southern-style house with her dog, Wizard at her feet, Lisa explained that her condition still horrifies her.

Lisa says that she will never get over not being able to see again

"I will probably never get over the shock of waking up every morning, hearing the birds and not being able to see them," she says.

She has just signed a contract with a Miami art publisher.

They want her to work in oils, and she is relying on the same determination which has helped her overcome her disability to make the leap into the new medium. Her husband is convinced she can succeed.

"I definitely believe she has some gift," he says.

"And yes, I believe there is some higher power guiding her hand."

For how much longer will Lisa be able to transfer her inner vision to the canvas?

The disease that made her blind is slowly crippling her body.

She says she will never give up painting and says her ambition is to travel to India to paint a thousand people bathing in the Ganges.