Mixwell painting engine

Learn oil painting from the masters.

On your own photo, with your own paints. Mixwell breaks the painting into small steps: which colors to mix from your tubes, how much paint to squeeze out, and what the canvas should look like after each step.

Try it free Use your own photo

Tap the photo

  1. Loading the mixing engine…
A painter mixing a pink pile on a wooden palette with a palette knife

This pile

  1. Mixing…

Mix it right the first time

No more guessing which tubes make that color, or adding white until it turns to mud. Mixwell tells you which tubes to use and how much of each, and shows you what the mix will look like before you start.

Try it free

Know what comes next, every step of the way

The painting after step 1

Step 1 of 9

Tone the canvas

Start from a classic study: the pears, a mountain lake, a cat in the garden or an orange lily.

Leonardo explains each step, in his own words

Choose Leonardo as your teacher and Mixwell plans your photo the way he worked: a careful drawing, the whole picture modelled in light and shade, a softly blended first coat, then thin glazes.

Each step carries what he wrote about it, where the passage comes from, and one plain line on what it means for you. He asks for patience, so a small canvas is a good place to start.

Try it free with Leonardo Read his writings

The outlines, slowly

Draw the outlines with great deliberation, checking each one against the photo. Accuracy first; speed comes by itself.

From Leonardo's own writing Pro

If you wish to make good and useful studies, use great deliberation in your drawings… When you have acquired the habit, and formed your hand to accuracy, quickness of execution will come of itself.

A Treatise on Painting, chapter CLXXXI

Slow and careful first. Speed comes later, on its own.

Light into shadow, without borders

Turn each form with no line where the light becomes shadow: the passage from one to the other should be invisible.

From Leonardo's own writing Pro

…take care that the shadows and lights be united, or lost in each other; without any hard strokes, or lines: as smoke loses itself in the air, so are your lights and shadows to pass from the one to the other, without any apparent separation.

A Treatise on Painting, chapter CLXXXI

No edge where light turns into shadow: one passes into the other like smoke into air.

The distance: bluish and soft

Distant things take the color of the air: lighter, bluer, their outlines lost. Veil them with thin, light paint dragged over the dry surface.

From Leonardo's own writing Pro

Leonardo's figure: a tower seen from a point, with lines of sight running to its top and its foot
Buildings or towns seen through a fog, or the air made thick by smoke or other vapours, will appear less distinct the lower they are…

A Treatise on Painting, chapter CCCXII

Near the ground the air is thickest: the low parts of distant things fade first.

Plan before you paint

A painting takes days to finish. Mixwell's first page asks what yours is for and gets the composition right, before any paint goes on.

Put what the painting is about where the eye lands first, a little off-center, and cut whatever does not help.

Why you're painting it

To learn something, as a gift, for your wall, to show or sell, or for the joy of it. Each answer says what it means for the plan, and you put your aim in one sentence.

The composition

Frame the photo on your canvas size, then test it. Squint to leave only the big lights and darks. Flip it in a mirror, as Leonardo checked his work, and whatever is off jumps out.

The sketch, as the foundation

Everything you paint is built on this drawing. Change the framing, the sketch style or the detail until the composition is right.

Your own setup

Your level, your teacher, your ground, your canvas. Happy with them? Make them the default for new paintings on this device.

Picture it through

Before you paint, look at each stage and picture it in your mind. When you can see the whole painting, you are ready.

  • The pears at the sketch stageSketch
  • The pears with the main masses laid inMain masses
  • The pears halfwayHalfway
  • The pears before the detailsBefore the details
  • The pears with the details under wayDetails, halfway
  • The finished pearsFinished
The pears, painted from Mixwell's plan The photo it was planned from

Help at the easel

Stuck on a color? Tap it in your photo and Mixwell tells you which tubes to mix and in what amounts. Tap a pile and the canvas shows you where it goes.

It explains the things that usually go wrong: why a light turns muddy when you paint it into wet dark paint, how to keep fat over lean, and how long to wait before the next layer.

It works with the paints you already have, including student-grade tubes, and with the size of canvas you are painting on.

Your paintings save to your account, so you can plan on your phone and paint with your laptop next to the easel.

The masters' own books, free to read

Twelve books on painting and drawing, complete, from Cennini’s workshop to Robert Henri’s talks to his students, with the figures and plates of the editions that have them. No account, nothing to pay. Open the Mixwell Library. Leonardo’s Treatise also reads in six other languages.

One head painted in monochrome at four stages, from the first drawing to the finished study
One head at four stages: the frontispiece of Solomon's The Practice of Oil Painting.
Two draped figures, one seated and pointing, one standing, in fine outline
Leonardo, A Treatise on Painting.
A pen drawing of a man and a dog by a stone wall, with trees and hills behind
Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing.

Pricing

Free

$0

  • One painting of your own, start to finish
  • All the demo paintings
  • Mixes from your paints
  • Every book in the Library
Try it free

Pro

$9.99 a month, cancel anytime

  • As many paintings as you like
  • Your paintings on your phone and your computer
  • Leonardo's notes on every step
  • Every teacher, style and detail level
  • Everything we add later

Get an email when Pro opens

Questions

I am just starting out. Is this for me?

Yes, that is who it is for. Every step tells you what to do and why, in plain words. Start with one of the demo photos, then try your own.

Who are the teachers?

Painters whose way of working shapes your plan. Choose one and Mixwell plans your photo the way they painted and explains every step. Leonardo has his own words on every step, quoted from his Treatise on Painting and his Notebooks, each with its source; those notes are part of Pro. The other painters in the app are marked "Inspired by": their methods are drawn from what their students, notebooks and technical studies record.

Are the books really free?

Yes. The twelve books in the Library are complete and in the public domain. You don't need an account to read them, and each one is also there as plain text.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Mixwell runs in your browser, on a computer, tablet or phone.

Are my photos uploaded?

Your photo is processed on your device. If you sign in, your paintings are saved to your account so you can open them anywhere.

Which paints does it know?

Common oil colors from several brands, artist and student grade. You can add your own tube by its pigment code.

How accurate are the mixes?

Each mix shows how close it gets. Use it as a starting point and adjust by eye, the way you would anyway.

Acrylic or watercolor?

Oil for now. Acrylic and gouache come later.

Can I cancel?

Yes, anytime, from your account. Your paintings stay yours.