I was a fairly good artist as a kid, or at least I thought so. I did a lot of pencil drawing, mainly of superheroes like Spider-man or my own cartoon creations. So you'd think a paint by number kit would be a cinch, even an insult to my artistic abilities. I received one of Snoopy and Woodstock for my birthday when I was about 11. I recall the painting had them sitting on a bench, wrapped in a red blanket holding a flag that said "Rah". Doing a quick Google search, I was able to identify the exact kit.
Courtesy of collectpeanuts.com
It wasn't complex. According to the kit above, there were only 8 colors. Snoopy being mainly white and Woodstock being mainly yellow, there wasn't a lot of color variance.
I made a mess of it. I bled over the lines and then tried to outline it with the black paint. One of my problems was, I didn't have the patience to allow one color to dry before proceeding to the next. Poor Snoopy and Woodstock ended up looking like nightmarish blobs.
Clearly, the artist who did this paint by number which I picked up this past weekend at an estate sale for $5 was much more skilled.
The control and usage of the colors is impressive. They must have had much more patience than I had.
The creation of the paint by number painting is attributed to Max Klein of the Palmer Paint Company of Detroit and artist Dan Robbins. Together, they created the Craft Master company in 1951 marketing paint by number kits emblazoned with the slogan "Every Man a Rembrandt!"
Once looked down upon as low-brow art, paint by number paintings have become quite collectible in recent years. In fact, the Smithsonian created an exhibit around Paint by Number paintings in 2001. A quick look through eBay sold prices places some vintage pieces in the hundreds of dollars.
i was never good at PBN either. it has been enjoyable seeing them ascend to collectible status, though. i call it the Bob Ross effect.
ReplyDeleteI remember making a hot mess out of paint by number. Like you I just did not have the patience.
ReplyDeletebtw, Google is ALWAYS WATCHING. Youtube offered me this just now. actually, quite fun!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S2SptBd6B4&ab_channel=JordanPersegati
Yeah, hate when I look up something out of curiosity and suddenly my feed is inundated with ads. I ordered some cheese online a couple weeks ago. Nothing but cheese in my feed now!
Deleteoh, ain't that the truth. awhile back i watched ONE video of a snowboarder who broke their ankle and had to crawl back to the slopes and get help, and for weeks Youtube was convinced that i wanted to see EVERY video where a skier or snowboarder broke something. it was exhausting, but finally the algorithm dropped it.
DeleteIt's always amazing to see how things change over time. I remember back in the 70's that arts and crafts stuff like this were crazy-popular. All sorts of stuff like paint by number sets, macramé, pom pom kits, (a personal fave of mine) candle projects, (I remember a floating one in a box that made it look like a Micronaut product) those weird "turn bottles into deadly drinking glasses" things, and then by the late 80's it was mostly done.
ReplyDeleteDon C.
Yes, looking through the Sear's Christmas Catalogs of the 1970's, there were full pages dedicated to those craft projects. Rock tumblers, latchhook rugs, wood burning kits. Definitely a hand's on era over today's amusements.
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