Finished Project: Massive Paint-By-Numbers!

Several years ago I was looking for a new hobby to keep me entertained on evenings that Joe worked. An old coworker of mine turned me onto a website that sold a lot of craft/hobby supplies, including huge paint-by-numbers, which really caught my eye. I figured I'd give it a try. I loved the idea of painting and I also loved that I didn't have to think up something to paint. It would all be presented to me with directions and little room for error.

I know what you're thinking, "those are super cheesy!!" But I assure you, the ones I set out to do were very labor intensive. I ordered my first canvas and within a few hours, I was hooked. I found the act of painting to be really relaxing. Plus, I could do it when Joe was around, too, because it hardly took any brain power.

Over the course of the next year or so, I painted more than my share of paint-by-numbers. I didn't take pictures every step of the way for every canvas, but I did for the first one. I enjoyed documenting my progress. Here is my play-by-play:

For $14.99 plus $5.00 for shipping, I ended up with a canvas, one little paintbrush, and these paint colors.



Here is a crappy close up of how small the designated painting areas were.

"Japanese Gardens" right outta the box. 20x16 surface area. 18 colors, plus tons of mixed colors...

Day 1! My progress after 45ish minutes of work.

Day 2, after about an hours worth of work.

Day 3.. About an hours worth of work.. including the 5-10 minutes I spent cleaning up the green paint my cat, Sasha, dumped on the floor!!!

Day 4 after 45 minutes. I have to stop after about an hour because my hand gets a little shaky.

Still on day 4, after another hour long session of painting.

Day 4 after another hour.

Still day 4, after yet another hour... Joe was at work this day and I was home, bored all day, so I worked on it in between chores/housework.

The last hour of day 4.

Day 5 after 35 minutes. It's almost time to start mixing paint colors.

Day 5, after 45 minutes. It's also at this point that I purchased a second paint-by-numbers to start when I finished this one!

Day 6, after an hour. I guess I started getting a cold at this point and found it tough to concentrate, but I powered through.

Day 6, after an hour. I wrote "I'm getting depressed as to how little an hours worth of work is looking." I'm so dramatic.

Day 7, probably about an hour and a half.. Didn't keep track of time because Joe and I were watching "Saving Silverman." He quoted half the movie and I blew my nose a lot.

Day 8 after a couple of hours worth of work. I guess I stopped taking hourly pictures because it doesn't look like much has changed hour to hour.

Day 9 and I'm finally finished!!! This picture constitutes about 50 hours worth of work over the course of 2 weeks!!!! it's dorky, but it was super fun.

I picked this particular painting because I planned to hang it in my bedroom when I was finished. I was able to find a really nice frame for it and it now it proudly hangs on the wall, just like I'd imagined.

It wasn't long before I started a second, a third, etc. Here are some of my other masterpieces:

My second effort. My mom loved it so much that I ended up having this one framed and gave it to her for a Christmas present that year.

This one was smaller than the other 2 and took half the time to paint.

I was going through these so fast that I bought this extra cheap one and the numbers telling you what color to paint were so dark, every color needed 2, sometimes 3 coats. Pain in the butt!! And ugly as sin, too.

I took lots of liberties on this one. The colors they provided were fluorescent and I muted some of them so I could stand to look at it.

Another small one. I opted for a non-cheapy and I ended up with a really pretty painting.

Another small one. I couldn't find any bigger canvases that had paintings that I liked.

The coworker that had turned me on to these in the first place got me this one for my birthday. I took lots of liberties with this one as well.

This one looks terrible in person. It's made to be blurry or something. Maybe I'll hang it in my future lake house.

I originally got this one to paint and give as a gift to Joe's Aunt, but Joe's mom told me that I shouldn't force it on her. So, I kept it for myself. And when Quinn was born, I framed it and now it hangs in her room.

Another small one. This was probably the most labor intensive of all the small ones.

I finished this one while Joe was at work. I sent him a picture of it when I was done. His coworker saw it and thought I was extremely talented, until Joe went and told him that it was a paint-by-numbers! Haha

Running out of options, I finally painted one that I would never hang in my house. My mom likes covered bridges, so I considered giving her this one for Christmas instead of the beachy one.

This is the last one I finished. I finished it about 2 weeks before Quinn was born.

After Quinn was born, I bought another canvas, got about half way through it and then lost the paints in the move to our new house, so I just chucked it. I haven't tried my hand at painting-by-numbers since because there's absolutely no way to do it when the kids are awake and when they're asleep, there are lots of other things I need to do. Plus, they don't come out with new canvases very often and I've done all the good ones.

I think maybe some day, I'll do another canvas or I'll take a stab at painting an absolutely blank canvas with my own creation. Who knows?! They were a lot of fun when I was doing them.