Complete Paint-By-Number Set [With Materials]

By Golf Digest

If you've ever wanted to express yourself by creating your own unique work of art-but just didn't know where to begin-this complete step-by-step kit can get you started. Even if you have no skills,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0762105755
• ISBN13: 9780762105755
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Reader's Digest Association, Incorporated, The
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 2.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 11.8" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Beyond your average paint by number kit reviewed by a very beginner painter

I bought this really uncertain about what it would contain and was really surprised. It is a paint by number kit, but it goes quite beyond that. There's an approximately 40-page full-color book that talks about different painting techniques and how to create them. The kit also comes with 8 different pictures to paint, I think about 8x12, and there is a second book that gives instructions on how to paint each of the pictures, which are arranged in order of difficulty. I did think the instructions for the pictures were sometimes a little difficult to understand, but overall you do get a sense of how to mix colors, blend paints, use different painting techniques, etc. I wasn't able to immediately do all of the techniques, but I certainly got more out of it than a regular paint by number kit. The set comes with 8 acrylic paints, a color wheel, a plate with six small pots for mixing colors, three brushes, and a scraping knife (made out of plastic). For some of the projects, they do recommend that you purchase additional tools, mixing agents, etc if you want it to look exactly the same, but at least for the ones I've done, I think you could achieve a good picture if you just do the best you can with the tools you have. I would, however, say that you will have to buy more paint, especially white, to do all of the projects, unless you are great at mixing colors, because most of the original colors are pretty bright and you do need to mix constantly to get the same colors as pictured. The book does state the next few colors that they would recommend an artist have, so that might make it easier. Sometimes, you do have to mix three different colors to get the right color, so for a beginner like me there was some trial and error. I personally, didn't think the color wheel was very helpful, and it was better to just attempt it based upon the written description and then revise as needed. The pictures include a wooden boat filled with animals for a children's room (looks a bit like Noah's ark, but doesn't actually reference religion), a vase of irises, roosters in a field, a woman with a child at the ocean, a bowl with lemons, a courtyard in Italy, an English cottage, a tree in winter, a field of poppies. They have enough variation to really let you try out different techniques. The pictures are not offensive and, even though I can be picky about my art, I found several pics that I really liked. The pics are a good balance of nothing really modern and nothing too traditional, so your typical pretty but not too saccharine and still interesting pics. The paints seem fine to me, bright colors, and none of them were dried out, like other paint sets I've considered. The pictures are printed on two types of paper, depending on the texture required, but they are both on thick paper that can absorb the paint and could be framed. The last of the book talks very briefly about framing recommendations and also provides guidelines for how to expand or shr