DIY gets used two ways in this hobby and they mean opposite things. One is finishing a kit somebody else prepared. The other is building the whole thing yourself from a photograph. Both are legitimate, they suit different people, and it is worth knowing which one you are reading about.
The two meanings
Completing a kit. The design, the divisions, the color matching and the paint mixing have all been done. What is left to you is the painting itself, which is the part that takes the time and the part that is enjoyable. This is what almost everyone means by DIY paint by numbers, and it is what we sell.
Making one from scratch. A free generator converts a photograph into a numbered outline and gives you a list of color values. You then have to get that outline onto a primed surface and mix acrylic to match twenty specific colors by eye, in quantities that will last the whole canvas.
That second route is a real project rather than a shortcut, and the mixing is where most people stop. We have written it up honestly in how the generators actually work, including what they do well.
What is in a kit
A printed canvas with the design divided into numbered regions, a set of numbered paint pots mixed for that design, brushes in a range of sizes, and a reference print of the finished painting.
Four details separate a good kit from a poor one, and they are worth knowing because they are what the reviews are always really about.
- Rolled, not folded. A folded canvas arrives creased through the picture and stays that way.
- Pre-primed canvas. Acrylic on raw cotton soaks in and dries blotchy.
- Sealed paints. Pots that have been breathing in a warehouse arrive thick.
- A large reference print. On any detailed design it is the item you use most.
What an evening with one is actually like
Worth setting expectations, because the marketing photographs suggest an afternoon and the reality is weeks.
You set up: canvas flat, lamp above it rather than behind your shoulder, water, a folded paper towel, the reference propped where you can see it. You pick a number and fill every region carrying it across the whole canvas before moving on, which is far faster than working area by area. You go top to bottom and far to near, so your hand always rests on paint that has dried.
The first hour is fiddly while you learn to read the canvas. After that it settles into something quite absorbing, and most people find they have been at it far longer than they planned. Our reviewers describe kits in weeks rather than sittings, and one wrote that the trees alone took seven hours. That is generally offered as praise.
The full sequence, from opening the box to hanging the finished canvas, is in our step-by-step guide.
The mistakes worth avoiding
One thick coat instead of two thin ones. Pale colors will not cover a printed number in a single pass, and loading the brush to force it leaves ridges and stays tacky.
Painting two touching regions while both are wet. They bleed into each other and the border goes soft and muddy. Paint one, work elsewhere, come back in ten minutes.
Wiping a mistake while it is wet. It spreads. Let it dry completely and paint the correct color over the top, twice. Never reach for rubbing alcohol or any other solvent, which dissolves cured acrylic and lifts the printed guide underneath.
Leaving a brush standing in the water jar. The bristles take a permanent bend within an hour.
Choosing a design honestly
Difficulty in this format has very little to do with the subject and almost everything to do with two things: how finely the artwork is divided, and how close the colors are to each other.
You can judge both from the picture before you buy. Ask how much of the canvas is covered by its three or four largest shapes, and whether the palette has real contrast in it or sits in a narrow band. A design with big calm areas of sky and water is forgiving. One with a dozen small birds in it, or one built entirely from pale tones, is not, however gentle it looks.
Our catalog is thirty-nine licensed original designs: cabins, shorelines, wildlife, gardens and winter scenes. There is no abstract range and no portrait line, so if that is what you are after, it is worth knowing before you browse. The full range is here.
The middle route
Between finishing somebody's design and building your own from scratch, there is a third option that gets missed. Custom Paint by Numbers takes a photograph you send and returns it as a proper kit: your picture, printed on primed canvas, with the paints mixed to it and sealed.
You choose the image, which is the part of the from-scratch route that is actually enjoyable, and skip the color mixing, which is the part that defeats people. For a lot of adults it is the version that finally makes the hobby stick.
If you want to think about why people take this up at all rather than how, paint by numbers for adults covers that side of it.
