Method of generating painted or tile mosaic reproduction of a photograph or graphic image

A method for creating a borderless hand paintable panel with a set of indicia for guiding a user in painting over the panel to create a painted image, the method comprising:

• providing a photographic image;
• creating an image in digital form from the photographic image and storing the digital form of the image in a memory in a programmable computer;
• assigning pixel locations to the image with the use of the programmable computer;
• using the programmable computer to assign color or shade palette values to the pixel locations;
• and printing, under the control of the programmable computer, indicia representing the color or shade palette values on the hand paintable panel panel, so that a user paints over the indicia, using paints assigned to the indicia to create a hand-painted image on the panel.

A method for creating a borderless guide for creating images defined by hand placed colorants, the method comprising:

• providing a digital description of an image;
• assigning pixel locations to the image;
• assigning color or shade palette values to the pixel locations;
• selecting contiguous pixel locations of similar color or shade palette values and assigning a single palette value to an area covered by the contiguous pixel locations;
• and
• printing indicia representing the color or shade palette values on a surface, so that a user placing colorants over the indicia by hand creates an image that re paints over the indicia, using paints assigned to the indicia to create a hand-painted image on the panel.