Learning to Paint
Demystify the canvas by learning how painters actually see and handle paint. Discover how light, value, and clean color mixing turn simple brushstrokes into convincing, vibrant images.
Like Duolingo, but for Learning to Paint. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 10 levels across 2 sections, about 20 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Putting Paint on the Canvas and Controlling the Image. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Learning to Paint
- In the real world, objects are defined by areas of light and shadow meeting, not by drawn black contour lines
- Outlining an object before filling it in tends to make the painted subject look flat, like a coloring book
- Blocking in connected shapes of light and dark immediately gives an object volume and weight on the canvas
- Squinting reduces the amount of light entering your eyes, which blurs away distracting micro-details and textures
- Squinting forces you to see your scene simplified into just three main values: darks, midtones, and highlights
- Grouping the scene into these three big value families makes it clear where your darkest darks and brightest lights should go
- A fast monochrome underpainting uses a single dark neutral paint (like burnt umber or raw umber) thinned with solvent
- Nailing the lights and darks in one neutral color creates a believable illusion of three-dimensional depth before you have to worry about color harmony
- Full color layered over a solid tonal foundation reads as much more solid and luminous than color mixed blindly on a bare canvas
- A large brush forces you to think in broad planes and mass shapes rather than getting trapped in micro-details
- Painting tiny details (like bark, eyelashes, or leaves) before establishing broad tonal shapes usually results in a messy, disjointed composition
- Small brushes should be reserved for the final stages of a painting, once the overall structure works
- Opposite colors on the color wheel (complementary pairs like yellow and purple) neutralize each other toward dull gray or brown
- Mixing too many competing pigments together creates dull mud instead of a rich shadow
- To darken a color without immediately making mud, painters often adjust value with a neighboring darker hue rather than a direct complement
- Every pure paint color has a natural lightness or darkness (value) even straight from the tube without adding black or white
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Learning to Paint the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What tends to happen if you outline an apple with dark lines before filling it in with color?
Get it right to open this lesson and 9 more in the app.
Where Learning to Paint takes you
- 1
Putting Paint on the Canvas
- Blocking In: Values Before Details
- Mixing Color Without Making Mud
- 2
Controlling the Image
- Edges and Brush Handling
- Finishing a Painted Study
2 sections · 4 units · 10 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Learning to Paint is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Learning to Paint today.
Download Tomo, search Learning to Paint, and play your first lesson in under a minute.