Not everyone can pick up a pencil and start drawing a masterpiece. But filling outlines in with colours according to numbers can make anyone feel like a Renaissance painter.

In recent years, the trend has moved to the digital realm in the form of colouring apps. Dive in and explore Colour by Number.

Open the app and you can find loads of patterns, including cute animals, quirky objects, emoji or even photos uploaded from your device. New patterns are added all the time, so check back often.

Choose a pattern and start colouring. Select the colours at the bottom of the screen and tap the squares with the corresponding number to fill them in. It won’t take long at all to get the hang of it, and it’s a great way to destress and lose yourself in the joy of colouring.

Paint-by-numbers traces its roots all the way back in the Renaissance, when artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci would put numbers on paintings and have apprentices fill in the colours accordingly.

Then in the 1950s, Dan Robbins from US company Palmer Paint was inspired by this way of painting, believing it would get more people to paint. And he was right – the company’s Craft Master paint kits proved to be an incredible success, and the paint-by-numbers trend caught on.

And now it’s made its way onto our iPhones and iPads, where we can enjoy the fun of colouring anywhere we go.