Photo Mosaic from Paint Swatches

I decided that I wanted it to be 20x20 to give enough detail but not have too many paint swatches (that's already 400 paint swatches).

I found a picture of Hugh Laurie from the show House online, brought it into Photoshop and reduced it to 20x20 pixels.  Play around with the Image Interpolation Mode (under Preferences/General) to see which one works best in preserving the right details when you reduce it.  Then I enlarged it to fill a piece of 8.5"x11" paper and made a grid between each of the pixels.

I printed it out  and took it to Home Depot to pick out Martha Stewart Living paint swatches.  They are twice as tall as they are wide, so I cut them in half to make squares (I believe they ended up being about 1.5"x1.5").  You can use any brand of paint swatches you want, but all of the other ones at Home Depot don't have nice even proportions, so you'll end up with a lot of waste trying to cut them square.

I used 3M Super 77 to attach them to a pine board.  Remember to spray lightly so that the paper doesn't buckle or bleed through.  I used Gorilla Glue to attach a piece of wire to the back of the board so that it will hang on a wall.

When you're done, take a picture, upload it here, then give it to someone you love.

Comments

[cheshiresgrin]

http://click7.org/image-mosaic-generator/?create is a photo mosaic generator. Granted, the mosaics are made out of smaller pictures, but it gives you a good starting place if you're trying to look for a starting place.

And I'm totally doing this! :)

[CherylTX]

Thanks for that link! I'm playing around with my kids photos. Really cool.

[ricardjorg]

So awesome.
I wish i knew some place to get paint swatches here in Portugal.
Show us a close-up picture =D

[catlick]

Tell me what colors you want, and I'll do my best to get you some and mail them to you. You just got to show me your artwork when you're done!

[matthew5384]

I gave it to a friend, but I will try to take a close-up soon and upload it here.

[GitarGr8]

Awesome, reminds me of the paintings in MInecraft!

[jiajunwang]

Its House isnt it? nice work!

[matthew5384]

Yes, it's House.

[poofrabbit]

This is fantastic! I always look at the paint swatches and think to myself what could I do with those. Did you take them all at once? You have inspired me to do one of my own. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.

[matthew5384]

Yeah I just walked into Home Depot after I printed out my enlarged copy, picked out the colors I needed, stuffed them in my pocket, and casually walked out. Kept it real cool.

Good luck! Be sure to post what you make here so I can see it!

[NarNar]

ROFL.

[poofrabbit]

Will do, I'll practice my really cool grab a lot of the free stuff and walk out acting abilities. :)

[kellimaier]

Ha...I'm an interior painter...gotta do this.