For grown-ups
Colours that mix like real paint
A screen mixes light, and light does not mix like paint: averaging blue and yellow on a screen gives a dull grey. PaintTots works out each mix the way paint really behaves. Every paint has a curve of how much of each colour of light it sends back, and mixing paints mixes how much light they soak up (the Kubelka–Munk model). That is why blue and yellow make green here, and a colour and its opposite go brown. It is a model, so it is close to real paint, not exact.
No right picture
This is process art. The point is the doing — choosing, mixing, spreading, seeing what happens — not a picture that looks like something. There is no score, no star for a “correct” colour and no timer. Describe what you see (“lots of swirly green!”) rather than praising the picture.
Painting together
- Take turns adding one dab each to the well (“two hands” in the grown-up’s chair marks whose turn it is).
- Paint at the same time: tap Sharing a canvas, pick the grown-up’s colour, and put one finger each on the paper. The second finger down paints in the grown-up’s colour.
- Paint a friend puts a faint outline of a paint friend on the paper, like a colouring page; tap it again to take it away. If it is on when you print, it prints too.
- Try the same mix with real paint afterwards and see if the screen was right.
- Print the painting for the fridge, or print the colours you kept as a little gallery. A grown-up writes the painting’s name and the painter’s name on the lines with a pencil; nothing is typed.
Safe by design
- On your device: no account, no sign-in, nothing sent anywhere.
- No camera, no microphone, nothing to buy or unlock.