dots in the shark

I just realized this. I feel deflated.

Of course, the degrees of freedom left to the artist by a paint-by-numbers product are not insignificant. You’re free to fill in the provided structure however you’d like, even including disregarding the suggested colors and boundaries. And in a sense any art form is paint-by-number to some extent: always, some parameters (e.g. “people will use tools to make noise,” or “there will be actors on a stage talking to each other”) are not consciously decided by the author, but instead simply assumed.

Still, I feel deflated.