PAINT-BY-NUMBER: Everything old is new again

The other night I learned, to my amazement, that there is a company that converts photographs into paint-by-number kits. You upload a photograph, and they send you a kit with the photo transformed into a canvas with lots of little numbered areas, along with little pots of matching paints. Brilliant!
The company is called Easy 123 Art, Inc., and it's based in Louisville, Kentucky. According to its website, the firm "began in 1998 with a simple product that would give anyone the experience of making their own masterpiece, and it incorporated something we all have and love…photographs. It was a modern take on the 1950’s era paint-by-number with a clever spin that initially set the stage for a mail order business. With the advances of digital technology, the mail order business evolved into an internet-based business with nearly 99% of all customer orders generated from digital photographs."
The website has a gallery where customers can show off their finished artwork. As one would expect, there are a lot of paintings of pets and kids.
I did those paint-by-number kits as a kid (this was long before the Internet, much less electronic devices), but I had no idea that so many grown-ups still enjoy doing them until I mentioned it in conversation. People tell me they find it relaxing and even meditative, much like I enjoy knitting. Who knew!