How to Paint by Numbers: Step-by-Step Guide for Australian Painters

Paint by numbers requires no prior experience. The technique is straightforward once you know the right order and habits to follow from your first session.

Paint by numbers is one of the most accessible creative hobbies available in Australia. No prior art experience is needed, the materials are all included, and the numbered system tells you exactly where each colour goes. But knowing a few foundational techniques before you start your first session makes a significant difference to the result. The most common mistakes are not about skill. They are about order and habits that no one thought to explain.

This guide covers everything you need to know about how to paint by numbers from start to finish. The right order to work in, how to manage your brushes, how to achieve clean coverage, how to blend, how to fix problems when they arise, and how to seal and protect the finished canvas.

Step 1: Set Up Your Workspace

Before opening a single paint pot, set up your workspace correctly. A few minutes here prevent most of the problems that frustrate first-time painters.

Cover your surface. Acrylic paint dries through evaporation and bonds to most surfaces permanently once dry. A sheet of newspaper, a silicone mat, or an old tablecloth under your canvas protects your desk and makes cleanup straightforward.

Set up two cups of water. This is the single most useful habit you can build from your very first session. One cup is your heavy rinse cup, where you agitate the brush to remove most of the paint. The second cup is your clean rinse cup for a final brush through before loading the next colour. Keeping these separate means your clean cup stays genuinely clean, and the colour you apply next is never contaminated by the colour you just used.

Flatten the canvas if needed. Some canvases arrive with a gentle roll from packaging. Lay your canvas face down on a flat surface under a few heavy books for 30 minutes before painting. A flat canvas is significantly easier to work on than a curved one, and the sections sit at a consistent angle under your brush.

Good lighting matters. Natural daylight or a neutral 5000K lamp gives the most accurate colour representation. Warm tungsten light shifts all colours toward yellow and orange, which makes it difficult to judge whether a colour matches its pot label correctly. Paint by the window during the day when you can.

Step 2: Paint Dark Colours First

Paint all dark sections first. Light sections painted over a dark foundation cover cleanly in one coat. Dark sections painted over light ones require multiple passes.

The single most important technique in paint by numbers is the painting order: always work from your darkest colours toward your lightest. This is not a stylistic preference. It is a direct consequence of how acrylic paint works chemically.

Dark acrylic pigments, blacks, deep blues, dark browns, and shadowed tones are chemically dense and opaque. They cover the printed canvas numbers completely in a single coat. Light pigments, yellows, pale pinks, cream tones, and whites are naturally translucent. If you paint a light colour over a dark foundation, the translucency works in your favour, and the light sits cleanly on top. But if you paint a light colour directly onto the white canvas where it borders a dark section, and then later try to paint the dark section next to it, the dark will sometimes bleed slightly at the edge if the light is still slightly wet, and dark paint applied too close to a dry light section can leave a hard line that is difficult to soften.

For a detailed explanation of the chemistry and mathematics behind dark-to-light painting order, our opacity algorithm guide covers exactly why this order produces better results.

In practice: start each session by identifying all the sections with the lowest colour numbers in your kit, which typically correspond to the darkest tones, and fill all of those across the entire canvas before moving up through the mid-tones and finishing with the lightest colours last.

Step 3: Work on Non-Adjacent Sections

When you are painting sections of the same colour across the canvas, work on sections that are not immediately next to each other. Paint section 3 in one corner, then skip to section 3 somewhere else on the canvas, then come back to the sections in between once the first ones have dried.

Acrylic paint dries quickly, usually within 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how thick the application is and the temperature and humidity of your space. By the time you have worked your way back around the canvas, the earlier sections will be dry, and you can paint right up to their edges without any wet-on-wet blending where you do not want it.

This habit also naturally prevents the frustration of accidentally dragging a wet section with the side of your hand as you reach across the canvas, which is one of the most common first-session problems.

Step 4: How to Cover Printed Lines and Numbers

High-pigment paint applied at the right consistency covers printed lines and numbers completely in one coat. Thin or watery paint requires multiple passes and often still shows through.

One of the most common questions from new painters is how to cover the printed black lines and numbers on the canvas so they do not show through in the finished painting. The answer is mostly about paint consistency and colour order rather than technique.

Do not add water to the paint. Acrylic paint straight from the pot is the right consistency for covering printed numbers. Adding water thins the pigment and makes it translucent, which is exactly what you do not want when trying to cover dark printed lines. If your paint has thickened in the pot due to a lid being left off, add only the smallest possible amount of water, one drop at a time, and mix thoroughly before testing coverage.

Apply a generous first coat. Load the brush so it carries a reasonable amount of paint and apply it with a firm, even stroke. A thin first coat that barely covers the canvas surface will show the printed number underneath. A full, opaque first coat covers it completely and dries to a clean finish.

For stubborn lines, a second coat is enough. Some very dark printed lines, particularly on the boundary edges between adjacent dark and light sections, may still be faintly visible after a first coat of a pale colour. Wait until the first coat is fully dry, then apply a second coat. Two coats of good-quality acrylic paint over a printed line will always cover it completely.

Dark sections cover fastest. This is another reason to paint dark sections first. Dark acrylic paint is chemically opaque and covers in a single coat almost without exception. Light sections over a properly dried dark base also cover well. The combination that requires the most care is a very pale colour applied directly over the white canvas with a dark printed number underneath.

Step 5: Cleaning Your Brushes Between Colours

'Two cups' is the correct setup. The first removes the bulk of paint. The second provides a clean final rinse so the next colour goes on uncontaminated.

Brush cleaning between colours is one of the habits that separates a clean, professional-looking result from a muddy one. The two-cup system described in the setup step above is the most reliable method.

The process: when switching colours, agitate the brush firmly in the first cup until most of the paint is released. You will see the water cloud immediately. Then move to the second cup and rinse through once. Dab the brush on a clean paper towel or cloth until no colour transfers. Then load the next colour.

Replace the water regularly. Once the first cup becomes heavily saturated with paint, it stops cleaning the brush effectively. Change it when it becomes too dark to see the bottom of the cup. If you are in a long session, change both cups halfway through.

Never leave brushes sitting in water. Leaving a brush resting tip-down in a cup of water between colours will permanently bend the bristles toward the tip and ruin their shape within a single session. Rest brushes flat on a folded paper towel or across the rim of a dry cup when you are not actively using them.

At the end of a session, wash all brushes thoroughly with clean water and a small amount of dish soap, reshape the bristles with your fingers, and lay them flat to dry. Brushes stored correctly last for many canvases. Our tools guide covers brush care, bristle types, and when to step up to a higher-quality brush set in full detail. If you want more control over fine detail sections, our 5-piece ultra-fine detail brush set and 10-piece ultra-fine detail brush set are both available with delivery anywhere in Australia.

Step 6: How to Blend Paint by Numbers Sections

Wet-on-wet blending softens the boundary between adjacent colour sections. Work quickly while both sections are still wet and use very light pressure on the brush.

Blending is an optional technique that takes a finished canvas from good to genuinely impressive. It is particularly effective in sky sections, water, skin tones, and any area where a gradient between two tones exists in the design.

Wet-on-wet blending. Paint two adjacent sections while both are still wet. Then take a clean, almost-dry brush and run it very lightly across the boundary between the two colours with a short back-and-forth stroke. The bristles pull a small amount of each colour toward the other, creating a soft gradient rather than a hard line. Use minimal pressure. The brush should barely be touching the surface.

Dry brush blending. If the sections have dried before you can blend them wet-on-wet, load a very small amount of the lighter colour onto a nearly-dry brush. Drag it lightly across the boundary edge from the light section into the dark. This creates a feathered effect that softens the transition without completely eliminating the colour boundary.

Blending is a technique that improves significantly with practice. On your first canvas, do not worry if your blends are not perfectly smooth. The 36 and 48 colour palettes are specifically designed to create visual gradients through multiple closely-related tones even without any manual blending, so the result will already look smooth from a viewing distance. Our full colour blending guide covers both wet-on-wet and dry brush methods with detailed technique instructions.

Step 7: Keeping Your Paint Pots Fresh

Acrylic paint dries through evaporation. An open paint pot can thicken noticeably within a single session and can dry out completely if left open overnight. Close each pot lid firmly as soon as you are finished with that colour. This takes approximately three seconds and keeps the paints usable across multiple sessions over weeks or months.

If paint has thickened in the pot but not dried completely, add one drop of clean water, close the lid, and roll the pot gently between your palms to mix. Test the consistency on a piece of spare paper before applying to the canvas. The paint should flow off the brush in a smooth, opaque line without running or dragging.

If paint has dried completely in a pot, it cannot be revived. The most common cause is a lid left slightly open overnight. This is one situation where a replacement paint set helps. Our full range is available if you need a fresh kit to continue a project.

Step 8: Sealing and Framing Your Finished Canvas

A varnish seal coat protects the paint surface from dust and UV fading and gives the canvas the appearance of a professionally finished gallery painting.

Once every section of your canvas is painted and fully dry, sealing it protects the paint surface from dust, moisture, and UV fading. A sealed canvas also unifies the sheen of all the different paint sections, which is particularly important because different colours and thicknesses of acrylic paint dry to slightly different gloss levels. A varnish coat brings them all to a consistent finish.

Use a water-based acrylic varnish in either gloss, satin, or matte finish depending on your preference. Apply it in thin, even strokes with a wide, clean, soft brush working from top to bottom. Allow the canvas to dry completely before handling. One coat is usually sufficient. For canvases that will be displayed in direct sunlight, a second UV-protective coat is worth applying.

For framing, a kit purchased without frame can be stretched over stretcher bars or placed directly in a standard frame. Our DIY wooden frame kit is designed specifically for our canvas dimensions and includes everything you need to stretch and mount the finished painting yourself. Our sealing and framing guide covers every method in detail.

Quick Reference: Step-by-Step Summary

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

Most problems that arise during a paint by numbers session have a straightforward fix. Here are the most common ones Australian painters encounter.

Our 7 common mistakes guide covers additional problems with detailed fixes for each one.

Frequently Asked Questions

About the Author

William Murdock is the Founder of Paint On Numbers. He has spent years studying the techniques that separate a satisfying paint by numbers result from a frustrating one, and built this brand around the belief that the right habits from the first session make all the difference.