Most guides to easy paint by numbers kits tell you the kit is easy because it comes with everything you need. That is true of every kit, and it is not what makes one canvas gentler than another.
Four things do.
What actually makes a canvas easy
How large the numbered regions are
This matters more than anything else. A canvas broken into a few hundred generous shapes is a pleasant few evenings. The same picture broken into a couple of thousand slivers is a test of patience and eyesight. You can usually judge it from the product photograph: look at the busiest corner, not the calm middle.
How much sky and water there is
Broad flat areas paint quickly and forgive an unsteady hand. Foliage, stonework, crowds and lace are the opposite. A design that is half sky is a genuinely different experience from one that is wall-to-wall leaves.
How far apart the colors sit
A kit with twelve clearly distinct colors is easier than one with four near-identical greens, because you can tell at a glance whether you have picked up the right pot. Closely related shades are what makes an advanced design advanced.
The size you buy
The same design at 16x20 has larger regions and larger printed numbers than at 12x16, because it is the same artwork spread over more canvas. If you are choosing on ease alone, buy the bigger one. It is the single most useful thing in this article.
Our five gentlest designs
These are chosen from what our own customers say about them, not from how they look on a shelf.
1. Summer's Song
Summer's Song is the one we would hand to somebody who has never painted anything. A canoe drawn up on a rocky point, a campfire, a lantern on a pine branch, and a lake gone completely flat under a crescent moon. The lake, the sky and the tree trunks are wide and simple, and the fire and the lantern are the only fine work on the canvas. Reviewers say plainly that the numbers on this one are easy to read, which is not something they say about every design.
One honest note: a few painters have found the occasional section with no number printed in it. Check it against the reference sheet and use the colors around it.
2. Be Still
An empty white chair at the top of a beach with a towel over the arm, and a sunset burning gold across the water. Be Still is mostly sky and sea, laid out in wide bands, and the breaking wave is the one place that asks for a careful hand.
The sunset looks like it needs blending and does not. It is separated into numbered bands of gold, rose and violet that sit beside each other. Fill them all in, stand back, and it reads as a gradient without you doing anything clever. Some reviewers found a few faintly printed sections, so paint this one under a good lamp.
3. Away From it All
A log cabin on a bluff above still water, birch and aspen turned gold, a stream over mossy granite and two ducks in the shallows. In Away From it All the sky, the water and the whole mass of the rock face go in as large comfortable areas. The rock looks complicated because of the moss and shadow, and is not.
The autumn foliage is where the small sections live, and the stonework of the chimney takes a steady hand. Leave both until you have your rhythm.
4. Guiding Light
A lighthouse on a rock headland with an eagle turning off the cliff and a birch leaning in from the left. Customers single Guiding Light out for clear lines and numbers that are easy to read. The cloud bank and the open water are broad and forgiving; the railings and the eagle are the fine work, and the eagle is only a handful of shapes once the sky around it is dry.
5. The Road Home
A dirt track running up to a lit farmhouse, a red barn on a stone foundation, a child on a tire swing and a yellow dog underneath. The Road Home is a step up from the four above, but it is one of the most popular first canvases we sell, and the barn, the road and the sky are all large and straightforward.
Paint the barn before its reflection in the pond. Get the red right where you can see it clearly, then match the water underneath. Working the other way round means correcting the reflection twice.
What we would not start with
We would rather say this than have you find out at hour three. Seaside Paradise, Mountain Village and Golden Hour are beautiful and demanding, with long stretches of closely related color. Orchard Puzzle has more small sections than almost anything else in the range. Countryside House is a deliberately dark, low-light palette, which is harder to judge than a bright one.
None of those are bad kits. They are second or third kits.
Three habits that make any kit easier
- Work one color at a time, largest areas first. You keep a single pot open, you do not clean the brush every two minutes, and the canvas fills fast enough to stay encouraging.
- Get the light right before you blame the kit. Most complaints about faint numbers are really a lamp problem. A bright light coming over your shoulder, and a magnifier for the finest work, changes the whole evening.
- Expect ten to twenty hours. Spread over a few weeks, an hour at a time. Nothing spoils if you leave it, and acrylic that has thickened in the pot usually comes back with a drop of water and a stir.
If this is your first canvas, our guide for beginners covers the setup and the first evening in more detail.
