Christmas always gets me reminiscing about those fabulous toys I had as an anklebiter back in the swingin' Sixties. One of the many themes of games and toys that Santa (or could it have been my Mum and Dad?) sprinkled a little of his magic over was paint. I loved drawing as a nipper and painting stuff was a natural extension. I have a vivid memory of painting a big red fire engine at Primary School during one of the class's countless 'topics'. I also remember clearly drawing loads of redline HotWheels cars whilst laid up ill in bed. I can still see the lined graph paper I used for these drawings (why?), done with a classic fat multi-colour biro - it had about 20 colours! Of the many artistic toys that I had I can now only bring one clearly to mind - the wonderful PAINT WHEELS by Denys Fisher, a sort of wheel on a stick that painted shapes in lines. I loved it! Pictured below in all its glory in that beautiful style so typical of Sixties and Seventies box art.
Now the second paint toy that I had was called something like MIST-O-PAINT or MIST-O-MATIC? It came in a huge box and basically you dribbled coloured paint into a rotating drum and when it stopped you had amazing paintings worthy of Jackson Pollock! I absolutely loved this toy and was lucky enough to find another one at a boot sale some years ago, but where it's hiding in my bulging loft is anybody's guess. I can't be sure of its name so I've not found anything on the net, except for a sample of the sort of masterpeices possible as shown below.
I will just have to find this toy in my attic to prove I'm not going nuts.
