A finished paint by numbers canvas can look flat and a bit obviously paint-by-numbers, or it can look like a painting. The difference is not talent. It is about eight habits, none of them difficult, and most of them cost nothing.
1. Cover the numbers with a white pencil first
This is the single best tip in this article and hardly anyone knows it.
Before painting a section, go over the printed number with a white colored pencil. Use gentle pressure — one or two light passes, not hard enough to dent the canvas. It will not hide the number completely, and it does not need to. It softens the dark print enough that your paint covers it in one coat instead of three.
Pale colors are where this matters. A cream or a pale blue will let a printed number ghost through even after two coats, and in raking light you will always see it. The white pencil solves that permanently. It also works for covering a dark smudge that has strayed into a light area.
2. Two thin coats, never one thick one
Loading the brush heavily seems efficient and it is the most common thing that makes a finished canvas look amateur. Thick paint sits proud of the surface, dries with a raised edge, and catches the light differently from the sections around it.
The first coat is there to block in the shape. The second evens it out and kills any streaking. Let the first dry before adding the second — twenty minutes is usually plenty.
3. Work one color at a time
Paint every section that carries the same number before moving to the next color. It uses less paint, it saves washing the brush constantly, and it stops you losing your place. Switching back and forth between colors is how people end up putting the wrong one in a section.
If you do put down a wrong color, leave it alone until it dries completely. Then paint over it. Acrylic is opaque enough to bury almost anything given two or three coats, but trying to lift it while wet only spreads it.
4. Soften some of the edges, not all of them
The thing that most gives a paint by numbers canvas away is that every shape has a hard edge. Real paintings do not look like that.
Where two colors meet and both are still wet, run a clean, slightly damp brush back and forth along the join in a light zigzag, wiping the brush every few strokes. The two colors merge and the boundary disappears.
Do not do this everywhere. Skies, water, mist and the soft parts of a background gain enormously from it. A roofline, a fencepost or the edge of a face should stay crisp — blending those makes the picture look out of focus rather than painterly. Choose four or five places where it genuinely helps.
This is a technique worth practicing on a spare scrap first, and worth saving until you have a couple of canvases behind you.
5. Add detail the numbers do not give you
Once a section is dry, nothing stops you working on top of it. This is where a canvas stops being a coloring exercise.
- Fur and feathers. The kit gives you flat blocks. A fine brush, a slightly lighter tone, and short quick strokes following the direction the fur grows will transform an animal.
- Highlights. A touch of a lighter color where the light actually falls — the top of a wave, the edge of a cloud, the rim of a roof — adds depth immediately.
- Foliage. Dabbing with an almost-dry brush over a flat green gives leaves texture rather than a solid mass.
Test on paper first to find the brush and the pressure. There is no way to get this wrong that a dry section and another coat will not fix.
6. Use water sparingly
Acrylic thins with water, which is useful for softening a transition or laying a translucent glaze over a dry area. It is also easy to overdo.
Too much water breaks down the binder that makes the paint stick and turns it transparent, so it stops covering the printed numbers. Keep it to a few drops, and test the mix on paper before it goes near the canvas. Our guide to acrylic consistencies covers where the limit is.
7. Let it dry, and keep your hand off it
Most ruined canvases are ruined by a sleeve or the side of a hand dragging through a section that looked dry and was not. Give it longer than you think, rest your hand on a sheet of paper, and work from the top of the canvas downward so you are always leaning on finished work.
A hairdryer on its coolest setting speeds things up if you are impatient. Heat is not necessary and warm air can make the surface skin over while the paint underneath is still soft.
8. Finish it properly
Two things at the end make more difference to how a canvas looks on a wall than anything you did while painting it.
Frame it. A frame holds the canvas flat, hides the untidy border, and lifts the whole thing. If you have an unframed canvas, either have it framed or paint the border a plain black or white so the edges look deliberate. Our guide to framing a paint by number canvas goes through the options.
Varnish it. Different colors dry to different sheens, and a finished canvas often looks patchy for that reason alone. A coat of varnish evens the surface out and protects it. Satin is the safe choice; gloss deepens the colors but reflects the room. Let the paint cure for several days first — sealing a finished acrylic painting covers the order.
A few things worth setting up before you start
- Good light. An adjustable lamp positioned to the side rather than overhead, so it does not glare off the wet paint. This helps more than any technique.
- A water pot and a damp cloth. Cloth beats paper towel — it wipes the brush cleanly and does not shed fibers into the paint.
- A scrap of paper for testing. Colors dry darker than they look wet. Test before committing.
- Let the canvas flatten first. A canvas that ships rolled should lie flat for a day before you paint on it, or the paint can crack along the curl.
Common questions
How do you smooth out a paint by numbers canvas?
Mostly you do not need to. A printed canvas is already primed, and adding gesso over the top risks obscuring the numbers and lines you are working from.
If the canvas is creased from shipping, lay it flat under a few heavy books overnight, or stretch it onto a frame. Both work better than anything applied to the surface. Sanding a printed canvas will take the printing off along with the texture.
Should I paint light to dark or dark to light?
Dark first, working toward the lights. The darks cover the printed numbers in one coat and give you the structure of the image early. There is more on this in our guide to starting with light or dark colors.
What if I run out of a color?
Usually it is the background color, because it covers the most canvas. Every Ledgebay design has a matched replacement paint set, which saves trying to mix an exact match by eye.
Do I need better brushes?
The brushes in most kits are adequate for the large areas and often too coarse for the fine detail. If you buy one thing, buy a single good small round brush, size 0 or 1. That is where the difference shows.
To sum up
White pencil over the numbers, two thin coats, one color at a time, soften a few edges but not all of them, add detail once it is dry, and finish with a frame and a varnish. None of it requires skill you do not already have — it mostly requires going slower than feels necessary.
You can see the full range of designs in the shop, or look through the customer gallery to see what other people's finished canvases look like, which is the most useful benchmark there is.
