Bad Crafts: Paint by Numbers

Paint by numbers kits may be one of the art forms with the least amount of artistic integrity. And yet there is something fascinating about the way you can blob a bunch of paint on a sheet of pre-printed cardboard, and end up with something that looks reasonably like a picture.

I myself committed a number of paint by numbers paintings in my youth. Once I was old enough to be trusted to handle the acrylic paints (probably around 8 or 10) I was mad for the ones that had horses in them, because I was one of those annoying girls who loves horses. I vividly remember every paint by number I created when I was a kid, even though I never actually displayed any of them. By the time they were finished, I had made such a hash of them that I was embarrassed at the thought that anyone else would ever see them.

Paint by numbers kits test, more than anything else, your ability to stay within the lines. In this respect they are actually antithetical to the entire point of artistic endeavor. Personally I think kids should be rewarded for painting and coloring outside the lines, because that is what life is all about. But if you paint outside the lines with a paint by numbers kit, you just get an ugly mess.

On the up side, they also teach patience, or try to, in that you have to wait in between applications for your paint to dry. If you try to paint wet against wet, you end up with a blurry, blotchy mess.

I also remember that the white and light colored paints were insufficiently opaque. You could see the numbers keys under the paint, even though they were printed in a faint blue. Maybe I hadn't done the paints right, or maybe they have improved the paints since then, I can't say.

Image courtesy Flickr/Mike Baehr