Losing the numbers partway through is the one problem on a numbered canvas that genuinely stops you, because there is no way to work around missing information. It happens for three different reasons and each has a different fix — so the first job is working out which one you have.
The most useful thing on this page is the last section, which prevents all three.
Which problem is it
1. You painted over them. The most common cause. A section was slightly overrun and took the neighbouring number with it, or a dark color covered the printing entirely.
2. The printing was faint to begin with. Some kits ship with pale or blurred numbers. Nothing you did, and it does not get better.
3. The numbers have physically faded. The printing on a canvas that has sat in sunlight for months can lighten. Rare, and it applies to kits stored badly rather than new ones.
The fix that works for all three: the reference print
Every Ledgebay kit ships with an 11 by 17 reference print showing the finished painting in color. This is what it is for.
You do not need the number. You need to know what color goes in that section, and the reference print tells you directly — find the same region on the print, look at its color, match it to a pot. On a canvas you have already partly painted this is easy, because the surrounding sections give you your bearings.
Hold the pot lid next to the reference print rather than guessing from memory. The pots are premixed to the design, so the match will be exact when you have the right one.
Recovering a number you cannot read
- Strong raking light. Hold a lamp low and to the side rather than straight on. Printing that is invisible under overhead light is often perfectly legible at an angle.
- Photograph it and zoom in. A phone camera at close range with the flash off resolves faint printing better than your eye does, and pinching to zoom costs nothing.
- A magnifier. Obvious, effective, and worth owning if the fine sections are a strain generally.
- Work outward from what you know. Numbered sections repeat across a canvas. If the shadow under a tree elsewhere is a nine, the same shadow here almost certainly is too.
If you genuinely cannot tell
Pick the closest match from the reference print and paint it. On a section smaller than a coin, an adjacent shade is invisible in the finished canvas from more than a foot away.
And if you decide afterwards it was wrong: let it dry and paint the correct color straight over the top. Acrylic is opaque, and this is the most forgiving property of the whole medium. A wrong color is never permanent.
Preventing it, which is the real answer
Photograph the blank canvas before you start. Two minutes, good light, one or two shots close enough to read the numbers. Store them on your phone.
This single habit makes the entire problem disappear. Every number is recoverable at any point, including numbers you paint over by accident, and it costs nothing. It is the one piece of advice on this page worth acting on before opening a pot.
Beyond that:
- Work one number at a time across the whole canvas. You are only ever looking for one digit, so you spot them before covering them.
- Take each color slightly over the line, not well over it. Enough to avoid a hairline of bare canvas, not enough to swallow the neighbouring number.
- Keep the canvas out of direct sunlight between sessions.
Common questions
I painted over a number. What now?
Use the reference print — find that region on it and match the color to a pot. The number is only a lookup; the print gives you the answer directly.
The printing on my canvas is too faint to read.
Try raking light from the side, or photograph it and zoom in. Both resolve faint printing far better than looking at it under a ceiling light.
What if I paint the wrong color?
Let it dry and paint the right one over the top. Acrylic is opaque and covers itself completely.
How do I avoid this entirely?
Photograph the blank canvas before you start, close enough to read the numbers. Every number stays recoverable for the rest of the project.
