Painting What You See
Learn to translate the visual world onto canvas with confidence. Master value shapes, clean color mixing, and expressive brushwork to create paintings full of light and depth.
Like Duolingo, but for Painting What You See. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Capturing What You See and Bringing Paint to Life. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Painting What You See
- Squinting reduces optical clarity so fine textures and edges blur together
- Blurring surface details makes large patterns of dark and light immediately visible to paint
- Outlines emphasize flat 2D graphic boundaries rather than real mass
- Three-dimensional volume in painting is created by adjacent, interlocking patches of light and shadow
- Every plane on a subject belongs firmly either to the illuminated side or the shaded side
- A two-value block-in groups all cast shadows and form shadows into a single connected family before any half-tones or details are added
- Laying down a midtone first removes stark white canvas and gives a baseline reference for all other tones
- Broad shapes of light and shade come after the midtone ground, leaving extreme accents (pure highlights and deepest darks) for the final pass
- Large brushes physically prevent painting tiny textures and force you to look at overall shapes and value relationships
- Using a small brush too early lures the painter into over-rendering one corner before the whole canvas is balanced
- Color mud happens when opposing colors across the color wheel or too many conflicting warm and cool paint mixtures get combined accidentally
- Mixing complementary pairs like red with green or purple with yellow neutralizes vibrant hues into brownish grays
- Keeping a mixture to just two or three intentional pigments keeps colors vibrant and clean
- A limited three-primary palette forces all mixed colors to share the same parent pigments, creating an automatic family resemblance across the canvas
- Using too many pre-mixed tubes makes it easy to accidentally introduce clashing pigments that fight each other across the painting
- Mixing almost any necessary secondary or neutral color is possible from just one red, one yellow, and one blue
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 Painting What You See 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.
Why would an artist want to blur away the tiny surface details of what they are painting?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where Painting What You See takes you
- 1
Capturing What You See
- Seeing Shapes Instead of Outlines
- Mixing Clean Colors on Purpose
- 2
Bringing Paint to Life
- Controlling Edges and Brush Marks
- Creating Atmospheric Depth
2 sections · 4 units · 11 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
Painting What You See is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. 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.
More Arts on Tomo
Drawing and Painting What You See
Learn to translate the real world onto paper by unlearning symbolic drawing, seeing true proportions, and layering light, shadow, and color with confident brushwork.
How to Draw What You See
Retrain your eye to bypass mental shortcuts, capture real shapes accurately, and turn flat outlines into convincing three-dimensional drawings.
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.
Drawing from Scratch
Learn to draw with confidence on paper or tablet. Build genuine skill step by step, from confident line work and 3D shading to drawing figures, fabric, and your own fashion sketches.
Seeing Like a Photographer
Transform everyday snapshots into compelling photographs using whatever camera you already carry. Learn how to isolate strong subjects, read natural light, and build visual depth into flat frames.
Taking Better Photos
Transform everyday snapshots into compelling images with any camera you own. Learn to see light, master clean composition, and capture crisp subjects with intention.
Start Painting What You See today.
Download Tomo, search Painting What You See, and play your first lesson in under a minute.