Over 264 LED's help

Hi all.

First things first. I'm a newbie/wannabe at electronics and know very little, however I can program in C with no problems.

Here's my scneario. I have 264 LED's (red, 2x5mm, 2v forward voltage, 30 mA forward current) hooked up in 44 series of 6 led's. I have a DC power supply 12v 1.5a powering this light show.

My question is... I would like to be able to control these using the arduino board (can't wait to play with this thing). Going to purchase one whether or not I can do what I really want to.

This is how I imagine it will be. Use 11 of the output pins to control 4 series of LED's from each pin at the same time. I don't even know if this is possible.

Like I said earlier, I am good a coding so that is not my problem. I just need someone to let me know via schematic or explanation how I could accomplish this. From all of my research I think using a Transistor might be the best way but I don't know what kind to purchase and if it can handle 4 series at once including dimming of the LED's.

I really appreciate your help with this.

Gilles

Grab a couple of MAX7219 chips. Each one gives you individual control over 64 LEDs.
You'll need four of them to control 256.