Paint by Numbers, that mid century hobbyist staple, had a renaissance recently when clever designers started to hunt garage sales and flea markets for amateur attempts at The Last Supper, Gainsborough's the Blue Boy, ducks in flight and more. I too have sucumbed to their goofy charms.

Humble and earnest, there is also an underlying raspberry of disrespect;  they are defiantly not air brushed, photo shopped or art schooled. The announcement is clear; "I do not know how to paint and that it not stopping me." I admire that hutzpah and apparently so do others because before long PBN collections grew and gallery walls of earnest artist attempts became a design "thing." 

A customer showed off her purchasse of a pair of pbn kittens in her review and I gotta say, she knocked the whimsy out of the ball park:

Here's a look at a few curiously intriguing PBN I've found. By it's very formulaic nature, the end result  of a PBN should be pretty basic and dull. A lot of them are. Yet I've seen a lot of individual personality shine through in many a PBN; from the perfectionist to the scofflaws. Take this charming mess for example:

Two kittens being driven to distraction by a ball of yarn by a PBN artist too distracted to finish, or perhaps okay with this almost Fauvist depiction of felines. I mean, that barely even resembles a  cat face but who cares? 

And paint color #17? I guess they ran out. Oh well. To me, this messy piece moved beyond PBN and transcended into the realm of  Outsider Art. As I said on my item description: "Acrylic on board, with smudges and dog ear-ed corners. On the back, nothing except a water stain. In fair to awful vintage condition, but  honest to God, that's a part of the charm. Unframed. Ready to embellish  your PBN collection with Outsider cred." 

And of course, it SOLD.

And check out The Man, the Myth, the Legend - the OG radical himself, Jesus of Nazareth! There are a lot of Son of God PBN out there, and religious art in general was big but this one...this one jumped out at me. 

Something about the heavy layers of color and the penetrating stare coming from those world weary dark under eye circle elevates this vintage paint by numbers to something more modern and provocative. Frankly, I think it's giving some Socialist Realism energy but who knows if that was the original intent.

I do think, however, that this artist intentionally left blank the pupils in every single Retriever dog and pup. They look like little demons. Really underscores the frenzy of their ball mania. 

I also love the cowering family of ducks, hiding under the bridge.

This sailors at dock scene?

I kinda doubt the color of the sky was meant to be orange but again, this particular artist refused to be hemmed in. Or was on drugs. Either way, the decision was made: "orange sky it is, maybe a little lavender for good measure!" and a trippy mid century artifact was born. 

 So bravo to the iconoclasts who could make even a PBN their very own! Do you have a PBN languishing in your closet or basement? Maybe time to dust it off and hang it up. 

I have lots of other vintage PBN at my Pinterest https://pin.it/EH1gaPe4T  and Etsy page https://hellosugar63.etsy.com

and I hope you can enjoy them as much as I do. thanks for reading!