Our art tools story.
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"Inspiration doesn't come out of nowhere, it comes from action".
Sometimes the process itself gives us new ideas and guides us!
My creative story began quite a long time ago, when I entered the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In addition to basic subjects such as drawing, studio painting, and anatomy, we also studied plein air. I remember how I purchased my first pochade box. It was very reliable, with metal legs, but it had one huge drawback. It was very heavy. 7.6 kg. Then, being a very slender girl, it seemed to me that it weighed a whole ton, together with the tubes of paint that I took with me. And so every time I took this heavy burden with me and went to the location. As you probably already understood, having reached the place with this heaviness, I no longer had the strength or desire to painting, not to mention inspiration. I think that’s why I didn’t really like plein air paintings in those years. It gave me greater pleasure to sit comfortably in the studio and paint educational objects.
But things weren’t so smooth there either.
Being an artist who loves comfort in the painting process, there was one thing that often annoyed me.
A whole studio was allocated for our group, where we drew and painted all day long. We always left our easels, palettes and brushes there.
On weekends, we left the academies and relaxed like all normal young people (Don’t think that artists don’t know how to have a blast like other people).
And so, having left our palettes with paints in the studio for the weekend and returning to school on Monday, every time we found oil paints on our palettes coated with a thick crust or already completely dried out. And we had to spend half an hour cleaning our palette and updating our paints. I remember how much dried paint we threw away, although the scholarship did not allow us to be so wasteful.
Frankly, this greatly distracted me from the beginning of the process.
After 6 years, we finished our studies and left the walls of our academy. And everyone went on their own free voyage. Someone had to leave painting, someone decided to connect themselves with another occupation, and only a few people continued their creative path, among whom was me.
So, having graduated from the academy, with a diploma in my hands and a profession as a painter, I had no idea where to go. After all, none of the teachers for 6 years told us what we should do next.
In order to support myself, I started painting custom portraits. I got orders and everything seemed to be going well. But I felt that nature, sunlight and the changeable conditions of the day were pulling me.
So my theme slowly changed from portraits to landscapes. But the same problem remained: how to keep the paints wet for a long time. First, I asked my husband to make a box where I could put my palette with paints, since in the dark and in the absence of air they dried less. But the box was big. Then I started putting my little studies in the refrigerator so that the paint would not have time to dry and I could finish them the next day. I noticed that paint stays wet for a very long time in the refrigerator.
So we came up with the idea of making a small palette with compartments for paints and a compact case for it that can be placed directly in the freezer.
As it turned out later, the paint in the case in the freezer remains wet for up to several months! And here there were two huge advantages: saving paint (now there is no need to clean the palette of dry paint) and saving my time. And of course a pleasant process!!!
Then we realized that what was so useful and convenient for us could also help other artists.
So exactly a year ago we opened our shop on Etsy!
We didn't expect much from our endeavors, and we were pleasantly surprised as artists' interest in our palette cases grew more and more. We started shipping our art tools all over the world: America, Canada, Australia, Europe.
We began to think about what else we could create that would make the creative process comfortable and joyful!
So, in the process of new developments, we created a super light travel pochade box and carrier in one, so that the plein air would be pure pleasure and an easy creative adventure for every artist every time.
A year has passed since the opening of our business and more than 170 of our products have already scattered all over the world.
We are grateful for your trust and wonderful feedback and wish you great inspiration and of course happy painting!
