Persia Lou

Creative. Crafty. Fun.

Watercolor Pixel Painting

Two Christmases ago, I was really focused on making a handmade Christmas. I had come up with lots of fun handmade gift ideas for my kids, my mom, my sisters, but I was getting a little stuck on what to make for my husband. Until I saw Wit & Whistle’s pixel painting. I liked that it was simple, meaningful, and something that I thought he would like.

The idea is to take an image, pixelize it, and then recreate it in watercolors. The result is a beautiful, abstract image. I started with an image of the famous arch in Cabo San Lucas, which is were we honeymooned. Since I knew I wanted to frame the finished painting, I set up my grid so I would end up with an 8″x10″ painting that would be easy (i.e., inexpensive) to frame. To accomplish that, I scaled my image down to 20 pixels by 15 pixels using GIMP, a free photo editing program similar to photoshop. Here’s what the photo looked like when scaled to 20×15:

Next, I created a grid of 20×15 half inch squares on my paper, and when to work filling in my grid. It took a little bit of time to fill in all those squares, but I really love the way it turned out. It’s not a faithful recreation of the original image, but if that’s what I wanted I guess I would have just printed the thing out.
Now, it hangs in our room, and I like it so much I’ve often thought of doing more paintings of other meaningful places to add to the display. What do you all think? I would definitely recommend giving this project a go. Be sure to stop by Wit & Whistle to see her inspirational painting.

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  2. I love it! Sort of reminds me of a Chuck Close painting (and Chuck Close just happens to be my absolute favorite artist). I've actually been wanting to try something like this for a long time but been too scared/lazy but now I think I will have to give it a try! Thanks for the inspiration.

    • You're right – it is a bit like a Chuck Close painting. (In a less amazing way, of course 😉 I think you would like the technique if you give it a shot!

  4. Very cool idea! Thanks for sharing this at our linky party at BeBetsy – BRAG ABOUT IT! Hope to see you again and nice to meet you! Sharon and Denise

  8. Hey it's Deonna! That painting is so great! I didn't know it was an actual picture until I read your post. I thought it was cool even before that 🙂 I would love to try this with Lake Tahoe or some place that is special to us. Very creative

  11. It's crazy because I immediately recognized the arch from Cabo San Lucas when I saw it on Facebook (also where my handsome husband and I honeymooned three years ago). Definitely adding something like this to our gallery wall! Love it 🙂