This was for Ben, who has since been best man at my wedding. The story is below, but take a look at the painting first - you’ll see why in a mo.

Unbeknownst to Ben, I made the outline in pencil a few days before we were going on a big pub crawl. I wrote a number in each white section (1-6, you can see if you look closely), and then took a picture.

Then, for the day itself, I stopped him at one point and set up the challenge ahead:

“This is colour by numbers. Have a look at this painting - there’s no colour in it yet.

I’ve numbered the different sections of it 1-6, and there are 6 different colour rounds that we’ll cycle through, and throughout the day we’re going to have a few different choices for you to make. The colour each numbered section ends up being will depend on your choice at that point during the day. That means that - effectively - you’re the one painting.

For example, for one challenge, I’ll ask you which beer you prefer out of 3 different pints on tap - 1, 2, or 3. The beer you pick will choose the set of spaces with that number in, and I’ll fill it with the chosen colour. So this is your art, man.”

Or something like that anyway, maybe a touch less coherent at points. Choices included preferred beers on tap, favourite painting between two on a wall in the Tate Modern, and I think there was one involving me telling him he couldn’t choose a certain colour, he didn’t choose it, and then me telling him off for being too conformist.

Anyway, have another look at it now and it might be a bit more fun to look at knowing the story behind it.