Beginning any new hobby or craft can be daunting. Painting can be especially hard to start! We’ll share why paint by number kits are a great entry point for creating your first painting. Paint by numbers kits are easy to paint. (and yes, they’re for adults too!)
Easy things to paint: paint by number kits
Modern paint by number kits allow you to create great artwork immediately. Paint by number kits include everything you need to get started. If you follow the paint by number guide you can paint some excellent work on your first try.
Custom paint by number kits make your subject easy to paint by transforming your personal photos into a guided painting project. With services like Paintable Pictures, it starts with uploading a photo of something that you want to paint. Paintable Pictures makes your photo easy to paint by using a combination of modern software and human illustrators to map your digital photo into a set of color regions for painting. The end result will be a kit that includes your premium photo in paint by numbers on canvas, three different paint brushes and a curated set of 24 or more paints.
These paint by number kits are easy to paint because they help you with the hard planning and preparation steps that are key to an excellent painting. These preparation steps take a lot of training, practice, trial and error to learn and do properly. Paintable Pictures ensures you have a perfect plan printed on canvas to guide your painting. You’ll also be able to skip the paint preparation step because you have everything you need in the kit. You won’t need to plan ahead for a variety of paint colors and brushes, and you won’t need to learn how to mix paints to find the right shades.
Easy things to paint: picking the right photo
Paint by numbers kits make things easier to paint. But the painting is only as good as the photo of your subject. You want to avoid painting your masterpiece of a bad photo! It only takes a few seconds to identify a good photo for painting by numbers kits.
What makes a good paint by numbers photo
What makes a good paint by numbers photo? There are a few simple rules to check to make sure that the photo that you upload will be ready for primetime:
1. Make sure the photo is clear and well lit - especially faces.
One of the hardest parts of any painting is properly capturing the human face. Unusual shadows across the face can make an unusual painting outcome. So, when you upload a photo with people in it, make sure their faces are clear and well lit. Bonus points for your subject’s face to take up more space in the photo, as this just helps add more detail.
You’ll want to avoid photos in shadows or backlit. A backlit photo is where the sun or source of light is behind the subject. When the source of light is behind the subject the subject creates its own shadow.
2. Crop the photo so that it looks best for your painting
Paintable Pictures has a cropping tool during the checkout process as you are creating your paint by numbers kit. You can use this simple tool to remove parts of the photo that you might not be interested in including in your painting, or to zoom in on parts of the photo that are more interesting.
For example, when painting a photo of a two people at a scenic location, you may find it’s best to zoom in on the couple and remove some of the scenic location. The scenic location was great to include in the photograph, but you may decide this painting is more about the people in it.
A second example might be a photo with background elements that aren’t important to the painting and may be distracting. If you find that you have a great family photo that just so happens to have a vacuum cleaner and groceries in the background, it’s okay to crop those out for your painting!
Easy things to paint: get painting
Now that you have a path towards easy things to paint and the right photos to use as subjects, it’s time to get to painting. The hardest part is getting started and the best way to do so is with Paintable Pictures. Head over to Paintable Pictures and upload your photo. The team will start working on your kit and we’ll build your next masterpiece together!