Microsoft Paint Helps a 97-Year-Old Artist Find Inspiration and a New Way to Create

Technology can open new doors, and in the case of 97-year-old artist Hal Lasko it opened an important old one.

Lasko spent his career as graphic artist, but he thought his painting days were over because a degenerative condition was taking much of his vision away, according to a short film about his art.

Then his family bought him a computer loaded with Microsoft Paint, which can magnify portions of computerized artwork, and he began painting again.

“I knew I had to show him Microsoft Paint, and once I did he just took off with it. And it wasn’t until years later that we realized how important this thing was to him,” Lasko’s grandson, Ryan Lasko, said in the film.

Today, Hal Lasko’s is creating and showing his stunning pixel art and gaining national attention. Ryan Lasko tells the story of his grandfather’s artistic rebirth as co-director of “The Pixel Painter.”

Check out the film. It may be one of the best things you see today.