104 Years

This last week plein-air painting in Wyoming I used the travel paints that my grandma gave me when I was young. It is a  Lukas fold-able palette with small pans of rich color....and it could be over 100 years old. The paint in it is as good as ever.   My mother thinks that my grandma had purchased it when she attended the Royal Drawing Society in 1908. In one of my old books I found her school papers from the Ladies College in Eastbourne. She was fifteen years old at the time. If she did buy this pallete for her studies at the drawing society, then this paint box  is 104 years old now.

For me two amazing and wonderful things about this are that my grandmother had loved art just like I do and in sharing this paint box...we have put the very same paint to paper perhaps over a hundred years apart. The paint is still rich and vivid.

Also incredibly  the Lukas paintboxes that are sold today still look just like this one. The pans are still mostly full as I have carefully conserved them till now .....keeping them  for the perfect painting.

But finally they had enough of that and called out from the drawer demanding to be put to the use that they were intended for. Perfect painting or not they want their chance to be part of creation.

So when packing up for Wyoming 2 weeks ago, into the pack-sack it went along with a newer version of travel palette. The Lucas paint although so very old was deep, vibrant and easy to wet, much easier to use than the newer one.While plein air painting in the Wyoming hills I was pleased to be involved in a mentorship program with the local high school. I mentored a great young man, Matt and together we used my grandma's paint to create his first plein air paintng.
Many thanks to my Grandma.