AllieClay: DIY Paint by Number Elephants

Sorry I've been MIA for the past month I am finally moved into my new apartment. I am planning out how I want it to look because it is the first time I have had a home that is totally my own. I wanted to create a painting that could be the focal point of the living room and really the whole place. I also wanted to make sure that I included the colors I want for my place.

I am not very confident in my ability to just paint a blank canvas so I am going to make a paint by numbers that should be easy enough to follow and "guide my art"

Here was my inspiration for this project that I found on Pinterest, but since it sells for $5,000 its a little out of my price range..... so obviously it's the perfect DIY.

source

Step 1: Turn photo into paint by numbers with Photoshop

*I am a photoshop amateur I had to look at other blogs tutorials on how to use different techniques to get this outcome. I also depended heavily on the blog Red Bubble because he has a great tutorial on how to turn a photograph into a paint by numbers I am just expanded on what he did with a little twist of of my own.

Here's the image I started with:

1. I loaded the image into Photoshop and turned changed the color to black and white.
-Image > Adjustments > Desaturate

2. I removed the background so I could add my own design later.

-Using the magic eraser (tolerance 10) and the regular eraser to remove the background image.

Then I blurred the image to soften the lines for the colors

-Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur (radius 1.5)

3. Next I want to identify the different grays in the image so I can decide where each color goes later in the color by number. The number of levels will equal the number of colors you want to use. The more colors you have the more detailed your painting will be.

-Image > Adjustments > Posterize (6 levels)

4. I wanted to soften the lines a little bit more so I filtered it again.

-Filter > Oil Paint

5. Now follow the step #6 from Red Bubble to get the outlines for the paint by numbers. It is a bit of a process and he explains it really well so I'll just let him explain for you.

Here's how mine turned out.

6. All done! Same that image by moving all the layers of the outlines to a new tab and then flatten the image.

-layer > flatten image

-File > Save As > JPEG

7. Now the fun part! Making a mock up for what the painting will look like when it's finished. I think this is a really important step to pick out your colors and make sure they look good together. And you can make any changes now rather than later when it's too late.

First I designed the background: ombre hot pink and an orange circle

-select the darkest and lightest shade you want for the ombre

(one in the foreground one in the background)

-select the gradient tool and drag from one corner to the other (dark to light)

I did the dark in the bottom right corner to the light in the top left corner

8. To add the circle

-select the ellipse tool and drag out a circle in the size that you want

-then fill with color and use the move tool to place it. I put mine in the bottom left corner

9. Next I mapped out all the colors to use as a paint guide and to make sure I liked the way they looked together. I choose to do a palette of blues each with a similar darkness or lightness to its corresponding gray and white and light green for the lightest two colors.

-pick the color you want to an shade/color

-use the magic want to select that shade/color on the elephant image layer

-edit > fill

-repeat for each color

10. SAVE!

Step 2: turn the outline image to a document that I could print.

1. I copied the JPEG into Numbers (the mac version of Excel)

2. I adjusted the size of the image to 18 x 24 (I had to crop a bit off the top and distort the image to make it a little bit wider, but I really can't tell the difference)

3. I showed the lines where each page would print and added a rectangle around the very outside of the image so that when I printed I know where the images line up with each other. I also labeled each page with a letter so I know what order they will go.

Step 3: Emphasize the outline and add the numbers for painting

If you don't feel like going through this whole process with your image or if you just really love the elephants feel free to use my image! Here's a PDF of the outlined paint by numbers

Step 4: Print and trace the image

After you print the outlines you need to assemble the image together. You want the side and bottom lines to be on top of each other. To do this you will have to trim some of the excess white and tape the edges together.

Next use a sharpie to color in lines. Thicker lines help with tracing the image.

Fold the excess white edges and an additional 1/2''on all sides to help you slide the image into the backside of the canvas.

Once you have it in there you are ready to trace. I held mine up to a window to make the lines stand out. I traced around either side of the thick black line and save yourself some time and just trace around one side. I would pick either the line to the right or the left and stick with it.

Here's a close up of mine after I finished tracing.

Next step is to number just so you don't forget which color goes where. Really take your time getting this right because messing this step up with make you painting look really weird.