A common social ailment of Indiana is that the residents do not understand what constitutes a good garage sale. Most Hoosiers have nothing better to do with their time than to put up signs advertising their “5 FAMILY GARAGE SALE” and then sit in front of a small box of books and a few t-shirts Wednesday through Sunday waiting for someone to pay $5 for a very used copy of a Gideons Bible.

A couple of weeks ago, Maria and I stopped by a garage sale on the off chance that this one would actually have something good (I don’t know why we torture ourselves this way). We managed to walk away with some nice vintage wallpaper samples, a couple of trophies, and this:

Craftint Big 3 Set (tee-hee)

At first I thought, “How kitschy. Paint by Numbers.” It wasn’t until closer inspection that I noticed what the subjects of the paintings were. Nudes! Yes, instead of learning how to paint the human form from a live model, you can fake it with a Paint by Numbers canvas. I gingerly slipped the rubber band off of the tattered box and discovered that there were three paintings all in various states of completion. One was finished and the other two were started and abandoned.

The Bather

I couldn’t believe my luck! It was more than just kitsch, it was über-kitsch. I talked the seller down to $3 for the kit, complete with 30 year old paint, and strutted home. I really have no idea what to do with this now. I don’t want the pictures up in my home and I don’t want to finish them. I’m afraid that I’d ruin them.

Click on the images to go to my Flickr page to see some of the other canvases.