I recently embarked on a journey of Paint-By-Numbers (PBN) as a way to fire up my enthusiasm for my craft. It’s always exciting to learn new things, new methods, or new styles.
The products I purchased were from Paint Plot Australia (PPA). The products from this company are very high quality canvas, paints, and designs.
Here are the PBN’s that I chose:
THE GARDEN DOOR
I was inspired by the romanticism of this painting… the beautiful flowers, the secret door. As this was my first PBN, there was a bit of learning involved. I chose a wooden frame for this one as I felt it suited the outdoorsy country feel of the painting.
CORAL AND SEA TURTLE
I loved watching this one come to life as I was painting it. I made a few changes once it was finished. I blended some of the blues on the right so it wasn’t such a start change from one colour to the next. I added some stripes to the purple fish – to me, it just felt better. And I darkened some of the shadowy bits of the turtle (like the crook of his arm).
ROSE BOUQUET
The Rose Bouquet was a joy to paint. The colours and the beauty of the petals made me feel happy. Again, I made some changes when it was finished. I changed some of the highlighted areas around a bit (getting braver with my painting).
THE WATERFALL
This was by far the hardest one – so many tiny cells to paint, and all were fussy shapes. It took me around four weeks to complete. But I loved every minute of it. I chose a black frame for this one – to make the whites pop.
Framing
You can buy a “frame” with your order. Or you can buy it separately, but it is cheaper to buy it together. It comes as four pieces of wood that easily fit together. This style of frame is used to mount your canvas and wrap it around the edges and secure on the back. PPA has a video you can watch to help with this process.
For the Garden Door, I purchased a wooden frame – it was a cheap piece of art from an Op Shop and I swapped out the original “art” for my own.
The other frames in the images above are inexpensive frames from K-mart. I could have chosen larger frames with a mat board surrounding the painting, but I chose the exact size (without mat board) because I live in an apartment, and figured I could display more art if the frames weren’t larger than the painting.
Would I Do It Again?
I would most definitely work on paint-by-numbers again. And I would stay with Paint Plot Australia as their designs are brilliant and they provide high quality paints and canvases. I have also heard they have great customer service, but I haven’t needed to test that out.
Should You Give It A Go?
Again, most definitely. Everything you need is included in the cost. The canvas is ready to go, with the design mapped out and each cell is numbered. You match the numbered cell with the numbered paint – and start painting. You also get three paint brushes, although I used my own. It comes with a small colour image of the finished product. And some of them come with an A4 page of the lined image and numbers.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about this part of my artistic journey as much as I enjoyed travelling it.
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Thanks for viewing my artwork.
-Sandy 🙂
PS. The paintings in this blogpost are available for purchase, message me if you would like to know more. The paintings are 40cm x 50cm using quality supplies (canvas and acrylic paint), prices are $250-$350 unframed. As noted above, suitable frames are readily available from K-mart or Spotlight.
Sandra Burns ART 