How to Create Custom Paint-by-Numbers Art

Paint-by-numbers has always been a fun, relaxing activity for artists young and old. Now you can learn how to make a custom paint-by-numbers style painting of anything you can take a picture of! It’s a fun, customizable experience for everyone; it makes a great gift and encourages artists of all skill levels and ages to embrace their creative side.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Digital photo
• Adobe Photoshop
• Wax-free transfer paper
• Color printer
• Canvas panel (8.5-by-11 inches or smaller)
• Acrylic paints
• Paintbrushes
• Tape
• Pencil

1. Open any of your digital photos in Adobe Photoshop.
2. Click on the “Filter” menu at the top of the screen and scroll down to “Artistic.”
3. Find the “Cutout” option and click to open the cutout feature fine-tuning screen.
4. Click the zoom out button (square with a minus sign on it) until you can see the majority of your picture.
5. Adjust the “No. of Levels” and the “Edge Simplicity” until you have a picture you think is right for your painting skill level. You'll see that 8 is the highest number of levels, and 0 is the lowest level of simplicity, making this combination the hardest setting. Conversely, 2 levels and 10 simplicity is the easiest.
6. Confirm your settings with “OK” and print your picture.
7. Tape a piece of wax-free gray transfer paper to your canvas panel so it is covering the panel. Make sure the correct side is down so your tracing will show.
8. Tape your cutout style picture to the canvas, on top of the transfer paper.
9. Trace all the lines where colors meet with a pencil.
10. Remove the picture and transfer paper to reveal an outlined sketch on your canvas of what you are to paint.
11. Use the original printout of your picture to determine which paint color goes where in your new canvas "paint-by-number."

Tips & Warnings

• Start off easy; you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with lots of lines and colors on your first try. After you’re comfortable with the process, let loose and get as creative and challenged as you can handle. With time and patience you can create masterpieces!
• Confirm that your picture printing size is the same size as your canvas panel. You can use Adobe Photoshop to change the size of your picture.
• You can test if you have the correct side of the transfer paper down by making a small pencil mark in a corner and lifting the transfer paper to see if the mark shows up.
• Make sure you trace all the lines you need to before you remove the picture and transfer paper; it’s very hard to re-position the picture on the canvas exactly.