A big part of the preparation for the painting project is planning the 1,500 areas or spots on the canvas that each person will paint. There’s no easy automated way to do this part, so I’ve started drawing the shapes out in my software (Adobe Illustrator) and using the color concept image as a base. I’d initially thought I’d draw the shapes with some variation to them (shown below left), to reflect closer to what a normal paint-by-number painting might use. However, I’m representing flat shapes and colors and not lightness and darkness. I decided to use more geometric shapes instead (shown below right) that will be considerably easier and quicker for people to paint. An added benefit will be that it may create an interesting patchwork of shapes. I’m considering varying the colors somewhat from spot to spot, so the oranges for example, will vary a bit from each other. This will better show how more than one person painted the whole painting.
This change may make the painting process a bit simpler and duller for participants, but I need to plan for contributors who may or may not be experienced with a foam brush and paint! This should also make this spot-making process a bit quicker for me to complete. Once this process is done and the numbers added, I can use a projector to project it onto the canvas for tracing.