Saturday, January 20, 2018

Paint By Number

Saw this in Glenn Reynolds's background and recognised it as the Emmet Kelly paint-by-number that hung in my childhood home.  I assumed my mother had painted it, but I don't know. When I went to look up images I could smell the paint and see the texture of those paints as they were stirred.


I think this goes with the Kingston Trio post. Same era of my life.

Update: Looking at this, I think it would be possible for a moderately dexterous person to blend a lot of the edges between colors, which would likely be an improved effect.  Do we know if anyone ever did this? 

2 comments:

  1. I remember paint-by-numbers. I found them much more frustrating than creative. In order to minimize brush-cleaning, you had to find all the #1 bits, then all the #2, and so on--and I always missed a few. It turns out dexterity isn't my middle name--enough said. And to keep from muddling and bleeding, I had to let the previous stuff try before adding new paint to the area next to it. A 25-color picture, taking such logistics into consideration, would have required nearly a month. On a weekend you might get several colors in, but not on a homework-weekday.

    If I had ever finished one, it might have looked OK.

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  2. I remember trying them too and found them quite frustrating. I think it's funny that I now like adult coloring books.

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