My budding little artist Kizzy was very excited to get her hands on the Reeves Painting By Numbers Artist's Starter Set from Toys R Us. Big sister Megan was also very excited about helping her little sister to test it out!
The set includes three paint by number canvases featuring pictures of Noah's Ark, a horse and some penguins. There is also a small wooden easel, two paintbrushes, a mixing palette, a water pot and 21 small pots of acrylic paints.
The pictures on the canvases are quite intricate and definitely only suitable for older children aged 8 and over as recommended on the box. Each section includes a number which corresponds to one of the paint pots. Some sections require two paints to be mixed in the palette to make the right colour.
The easel is very cute, but both girls found it a little unstable to use for painting, but it will make a really nice stand to display finished paintings.
The paints went on really well and both girls really enjoyed completing the paintings. You have to make sure you wear old clothes or an apron, but the paint did wash out from clothing using soap and water when the paint is still wet. (Incidentally, it was my 20 year old daughter Megan and not my 9 year old who made a mess of her clothing causing me to test out the washability of the paints before making her wear a plastic apron!!) The brushes are of a good quality with a fine tip.
Megan had one criticism of the canvases, and that was that the blue printing was sometimes difficult to cover with the lighter coloured paints and the numbers showed through. This is only a minor criticism and it is because she is a perfectionist!! Kizzy said she enjoyed having to concentrate hard on the precise artwork. She showed real patience and developed her skills doing the painting. I was impressed with her perseverance and diligence!
In a world of high tech toys, it was really lovely to see my girls sat down together painting. This set was a really good introduction to acrylic painting, with interesting pictures and good quality materials.
It took three days for the paintings to be completed, so it is not a quick activity. It took real commitment from the girls to get them finished. However the end results were really very good.
