Twelve is an awkward age to buy art supplies for. A child that age is past kits built for small children, and a blank canvas with a box of tubes is usually too much freedom to be enjoyable. That gap is why so many art gifts at this age get opened, half-started and left on a shelf.
Here is what to look for, whether or not the gift comes from us.
Pick a subject they would actually hang up
This is the part most gift guides skip, and it decides everything else. A twelve-year-old reads cartoon subjects as being for younger children, and they are right. What holds attention at that age is a real scene they have some feeling about: a horse in a field, a lighthouse, a lake at dusk, a hummingbird at a feeder.
Interest is what carries a project through hour eight. Nothing about the kit itself can make up for a picture they were lukewarm about in the first place.
A bigger canvas is easier, not harder
This one surprises people. The same design printed at 16x20 instead of 12x16 has the same number of regions spread over more area, so every shape is larger and every number is easier to read. Buying the larger size is the simplest thing you can do to make a kit more forgiving.
It matters here more than usual. The single most common complaint in our own customer reviews is that the printed numbers are small or faint, and a bigger canvas takes most of that problem away before it starts.
Check what is actually in the box
Kits vary far more than the photographs suggest. Four things are worth confirming before you buy:
- How the canvas is packed. A canvas folded into a flat box arrives with creases across it that never fully relax. Ours ship rolled in a tube, and it is the detail customers mention most often in their reviews.
- How the paint is sealed. Acrylic that has been sitting in a loose pot arrives thick or half-dry. Vacuum-sealed pots avoid it.
- Whether there is a printed reference. Reading the guide off a phone screen is miserable. Ours is an 11x17 print, large enough to prop up beside the canvas.
- The brushes. A range of sizes matters more than a high count. One brush that holds a point is worth three that do not.
Set the expectation before they open it
A 16x20 canvas is usually ten to twenty hours of painting, spread over a few weeks. That is not a drawback, but it is worth saying out loud when you hand it over, because a twelve-year-old expecting an afternoon project will stall on the second evening. We have written more about how long a paint by number actually takes if you want a fuller answer.
Should you buy an adult kit for a twelve-year-old?
Usually, yes. We do not make a children's range, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Our kits are made for adults, and a twelve-year-old who has asked for something like this will get more out of a proper one than out of a simplified kit built down to a price.
The thing to get right is which design. Look for open shapes and clearly separated colors. Hummingbird and Rural Route Bluebirds are both good first canvases for this reason, and both are among our highest-rated designs.
What to avoid for a first kit, and we would rather say it plainly: Seaside Paradise, Mountain Village and Golden Hour all have long stretches of closely related color and very fine detail. Countryside House is a dark, low-light palette that is harder to judge than it looks. They are good designs, but they are not where to start at twelve.
The photo option
If the child has a horse, a dog, a grandparent's house or a particular photograph they care about, a custom canvas made from that photo is a different kind of gift. It comes in 12x16, 16x20 and 18x24, framed or unframed, and it is printed here in the United States.
One honest caveat: it will look like a painting of the photograph rather than a copy of it, and photographs with several small faces in them do not translate well. A single clear subject works best.
For a younger child, an honest look at kits for kids sets out what a kit does and does not do.
Three things worth putting in the box alongside it
- A decent lamp. Most of the frustration people report is really a lighting problem.
- A magnifier. It is not an insult at any age. The finest sections of any kit are easier with one.
- A spare paint set. Running out of a heavily used color part-way through is the most common way a canvas gets abandoned. We stock a matching extra paint set for every design.
If you are choosing a framed kit, a small tabletop easel is included. The unframed canvases do not come with one, so that is worth knowing before you assume it is in there.
The short version
Buy the larger canvas. Pick a subject they already like. Choose a design with open shapes rather than fine detail. Say out loud that it will take a few weeks. Then leave them to it.
You can see all of our designs in the full collection.
