How to paint by numbers: a complete beginner's guide

Updated 26 July 2026 · About 9 minutes to read

Paint by numbers is the most forgiving way to produce a painting you are genuinely proud of. The composition and the colour decisions are already solved, which leaves you free to concentrate on one thing: putting paint neatly inside a shape. This guide covers everything from the supplies that matter to the finishing steps that separate a fridge-door result from something you would hang in a hallway.

If you do not have a kit yet, you can turn one of your own photos into a free template in about thirty seconds and print it at home.

1. What you actually need

Kits bundle a lot of things you will never use. Here is the short list that changes the result:

• Three brushes, not twenty. A size 0 round for detail, a size 2 for mid-sized regions and a size 6 for backgrounds. The stiff brushes packed into cheap kits are the single most common reason a first painting looks streaky — a $6 set of synthetic rounds is a genuine upgrade.
• Two water jars. One to rinse dirty paint out, one of clean water to reload the brush. A single jar quietly greys every colour you mix.
• Paper towel or a lint-free cloth. Blot the brush after rinsing; a waterlogged brush thins the paint and lets the printed numbers show through.
• Good, neutral light. Daylight or a 4000–5000 K lamp. Warm bulbs make it very hard to tell adjacent mid-tones apart.
• A toothpick or pin. For stirring pots that have separated and for lifting stray bristles out of wet paint.
• Optional: a magnifier or reading glasses. If your template has 30+ colours, the small numbers get genuinely hard to read.

For paint, acrylic is the standard. It is opaque, dries in minutes and covers printed lines in one or two coats. Gouache also works on heavy paper. Avoid watercolour entirely — it is too transparent, so the guide lines and numbers stay visible in the finished piece.

2. Preparing your canvas or print

Rolled canvases arrive with creases. Iron them from the back on a low, dry setting with a cloth in between, or lay the canvas face-down under heavy books overnight. Paint pools in a crease and dries with a visible ridge, so this five-minute step matters more than it sounds.

If you are printing a template at home, use 200 gsm paper or heavier. Standard 80 gsm office paper buckles as soon as it gets wet. For a canvas result, print the outline on plain paper, rub a soft graphite pencil over the back of the sheet, tape it face-up on a stretched canvas and trace the lines with a ballpoint pen — the transfer method professional kit makers use, and the reason our high-resolution PNG download exists.

Before your first brushstroke, open every paint pot and stir each one with a toothpick. Pigment settles during shipping, and an unstirred pot paints a much lighter, weaker version of the colour on the guide.

3. The painting order that works

There are two competing systems, and one is clearly better for beginners.

By number, light to dark — recommended

Paint every region marked 1 across the whole picture, then every region marked 2, and so on. Our generator numbers palettes from lightest to darkest specifically to support this. The advantages are practical: you only open one pot at a time, you rinse the brush far less, and if a darker colour later strays over a boundary it covers the lighter one cleanly. The reverse rarely works.

By area, section to section

Finishing one part of the picture completely before moving on is more satisfying, and it is the right choice if you can only paint in short sessions. The cost is constant colour switching and a much higher chance of smudging a neighbouring wet region.

Whichever you choose, work from the top of the canvas downward and, if you are right-handed, from left to right. Your painting hand then never rests on paint that is still wet.

4. Brush technique and coverage

• Outline first, then fill. Trace the inside edge of a region with the tip of the brush, then flood the middle. You get a far cleaner border than by scrubbing outward from the centre.
• Two thin coats beat one thick one. Thick acrylic cracks as it dries and leaves ridges. Light colours over dark printed numbers almost always need a second coat — let the first dry completely first.
• Slightly overlap the guide lines. A tiny overlap onto the black line makes the finished painting look hand-made rather than printed. Leaving a visible gap of white canvas is the more common mistake.
• Keep the paint pot closed between uses. Acrylic skins over in minutes. If a pot thickens, one or two drops of water and a stir bring it back; more than that and you lose opacity.
• Rinse when switching colours, blot every time. Water carried on the brush is the main cause of patchy coverage.

5. Fixing mistakes

Nearly everything is recoverable with acrylic.

• Wrong colour, still wet: wipe it off immediately with a damp cotton bud and repaint once the area is dry.
• Wrong colour, already dry: paint straight over it with the correct colour. Two coats will fully hide it, unless you are covering a dark colour with a very light one — in that case put down a coat of white first.
• Paint over a guide line: wait for it to dry, then bring the neighbouring colour back up to the boundary with a size 0 brush. The line does not need to be preserved; it only needs the two colours to meet crisply.
• Numbers showing through: a second thin coat is the fix. Do not try to fix it while the first coat is tacky — you will lift the paint underneath.
• A missed region found at the end: completely normal. Hold the canvas at an angle under a lamp; unpainted spots catch the light differently and become obvious.
• Bristle stuck in the paint: lift it out with a pin while wet; if it has dried in, sand it flush with your fingernail and touch up.

6. Sealing, framing and display

Let the finished painting cure for at least 24 hours — dry to the touch is not the same as cured. Then apply a single thin coat of acrylic varnish with a wide, soft brush in one direction. Matte varnish hides brush marks and avoids glare, which suits portraits. Satin deepens the colours slightly and is the safer all-round choice. Gloss looks striking under gallery lighting but reflects badly in a normal room.

Frame a canvas without glass so the paint texture stays visible — a simple floater frame reads as far more expensive than it is. For paper templates, mount the sheet on foam board first so it stays perfectly flat, then frame it behind glass with a mat.

Keep the finished piece out of direct sunlight. Acrylic pigment is reasonably light-fast, but the reds and violets in any inexpensive paint set will shift over a few years in a sunny window.

Common questions

How long does a paint by numbers take?

A 12 × 16 inch canvas with about 20 colours takes most people 6 to 10 hours, usually spread over three or four sessions. Detailed portraits with 30+ colours can run to 20 hours. Complexity is driven by the number of small regions far more than by canvas size.

Should I paint the background first or last?

First. Backgrounds are usually the largest, lightest areas, and getting them down early means any later overlap from the subject's darker colours covers cleanly rather than the other way around.

Can I mix my own colours instead of buying a kit?

Yes, and it is often cheaper. Our colour guide gives the exact hex value for every number, so you can match them from a set of tube acrylics using titanium white, mars black and the primaries. Mix a little extra of each — matching a shade a second time is much harder than making enough the first time.

My template has tiny regions I cannot paint. What now?

Either print larger, or regenerate the design with the detail slider lowered and smoothing raised — that merges slivers into their neighbours while keeping the same rich palette. As a rule, the smallest region should be at least 3 mm wide on the printed sheet.

Is paint by numbers good for adults?

It is one of the most popular adult hobbies for exactly the reason people find it calming: repetitive, low-stakes focus with a visible finished result. It is widely used as a wind-down activity, and unlike freehand painting there is no blank-canvas anxiety.