Marker Lab
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Acrylic markers, step by step

A real painting on real paper

Marker Lab teaches you to paint with acrylic brush markers. The app shows the next stroke, you paint it on your own sheet: dark first, then mid, then light. No experience needed.

Coming soon to the App Store

For iPhone, iPad and Mac. In English, Ukrainian, Russian and Traditional Chinese.
A finished painting of a tree by a lake, taped to a wooden desk, with the light green and green markers used for the crown

One formula for every painting

Dark, then mid, then light

Acrylic paint is opaque, so a light colour covers a dry dark one. Every lesson is built on that: a dark base, mid tones on top, light last. Here is the crown of the tree from the lesson “Tree by the Lake”.

  1. The tree crown painted in one dark green
    Step 5

    Dark base

    31 dark green paints the whole crown in groups, with gaps of sky between them.

  2. The same crown with a mid green on top of each group
    Step 6, part 1

    Mid tone

    29 green goes on top of every group. The bottom of each group stays dark.

  3. The finished crown with small light green arcs on the sunny side
    Step 6, part 2

    Light

    27 light green in small arcs on the tops of the groups on the left, where the sun is.

Light and shadow in every picture

Every painting is built from light, half-tone, form shadow, cast shadow and the object’s own colour, with one sun in the picture. The course teaches this inside real paintings from the first week, not as theory.

The course

From a berry twig to a boathouse on the lake

Five chapters of small finished paintings. Every lesson ends with a picture on paper, and the scenes grow as your hand gets surer. Bigger scenes are split into short sessions.

  1. 1Meadow
  2. 2Lake
  3. 3Flower garden
  4. 4Farmstead
  5. 5Far lands
  • A twig with red berries
    Berry TwigMeadow
  • A red apple with a highlight and a violet cast shadow
    Apple in the SunMeadow
  • A tree on a grassy bank by a blue lake
    Tree by the LakeLake
  • A violet hydrangea flower head
    HydrangeaFlower garden
  • White daisies on a black background
    Daisies on DarkFlower garden
  • A small wooden house with a red roof
    Little House with a Red RoofFarmstead
  • A sailboat on violet water under an orange sunset
    Sailboat at SunsetFar lands
  • A striped lighthouse on a small green island
    Lighthouse on an IslandFar lands
  • A tree with pink blossom over a small pond
    Blossoming Tree over a PondFar lands
  • A snowy cabin with lit windows under a full moon
    Winter NightFar lands
  • A boathouse on a lake with a wooden pier
    Boathouse on the LakeFar lands

These are the lessons’ target paintings, drawn by the app’s own paint engine.

How a lesson works

The screen shows, your hand paints

The paper is the point. The app pauses at every part of a step and sends you back to the table.

  1. Watch

    The painting plays stroke by stroke, so you see the order and the motion before you start.

  2. Paint

    The picture shows the next marks at real size, numbered, and names your marker by its number and colour.

  3. Let it dry

    Between layers the app waits with you. While it dries, cap the marker: a dry layer is matte, not shiny.

  4. Photograph it

    Snap the finished sheet and it goes into your sketchbook, next to the lesson it came from.

The lake painting halfway: sky, cloud, forest and water in colour, the bank and the tree still in pencil
What isn’t painted yet waits in pencil.
The finished lake painting with the tree and the grass
How it will look. The target stays in view.

Light Lab

Move the sun, watch the shadows

A small paper scene with a ball, a cube and a tree. Drag the sun along its arc and see the light, half-tone, form shadow and cast shadow move with it.

Every step of a lesson has a small sun badge that shows where the light comes from and opens the lab set up for that lesson. Then there is a shadow quiz. The lab works offline and sends nothing anywhere.

  • Where will the shadow fall?
  • Long or short?
  • Where’s the sun?
  • Shadow colour
  • Find the shadow that’s wrong
One tree painted three times: under the morning, noon and evening sun, with the shadow moving
“Three Suns”: one tree at three times of day.
An apple with light on the left and its shadow on the right
“Apple in the Sun”: light, half-tone and a cast shadow.

Teacher’s Tip, optional

A second pair of eyes on your paper

Photograph your painting and get one specific piece of praise and one or two tips for the next try, with your own marker numbers.

  • Only when you ask. Nothing is sent until you tap to send a photo. The first time, the app tells you who will look at it.
  • Written by Claude, an AI by Anthropic. The photo of the sheet goes to our server and to Anthropic to write the tip. We don’t keep the photo, and it isn’t used to train AI.
  • Parents decide. Each AI feature can be turned off in For Parents. On a child’s profile a grown-up allows it once and can require the parent PIN.
  • A tip, not a grade. The teacher talks about the painting, never about people. There is no chat and nothing to type.

How photos are handled

Photo of a painted tree by a lake
Teacher’s Tip Example

The crown of groups came out light: you can see the sky between them.

Light from the left27 light green in small arcs on the tops of the groups on the left. Keep the bottoms dark.

Let the layer dryLight on a wet dark layer smudges. Wait until the paint turns matte.

Next time: three tones on every group.

A photo of a house with a red roof, a tree and a path
Your photo
The same scene as zones, each labelled with a marker number and a tone
Zones with your marker numbers

A Lesson from Your Photo

Paint the places you love

Pick a photo. The app turns it into zones in the colours of your markers, a clean outline and a painting order: background, dark, mid, light, details. All of this happens on your device and works offline.

If you want, the teacher writes the step plan from a simplified colour map. The photo itself stays on your device.

Sketchbook and printables

Everything ends on paper

Three ways to get the drawing onto your sheet, and a sketchbook that keeps every finished work by chapter.

A4 · US Letter

Print the outline

A sheet at real size with the painting order and marker tests. A 5 cm ruler on the page checks the scale.

iPad · iPhone

Light table

Lay thin paper on the screen and trace the outline that shines through, calibrated to real size.

3 × 4

Grid

Rule a light grid on your paper and copy the drawing one cell at a time.

For grown-ups and for children

Calm, private, made with parents in mind

Learning for yourself

Choose “I paint” and the course talks to you as a grown-up. No experience needed: markers, paper and a little time.

A child paints

Choose “A child paints” and an age band. A name is optional and stays on the device. A grown-up keeps the settings.

  • No ads, no trackingNo advertising, no third-party analytics, no tracking across apps.
  • Parent PINAn optional PIN guards purchases, links out of the app, sharing and settings. Without a PIN, a quick grown-up check does.
  • No streaks, no pressurePraise goes to the work. Every painting day plants something in the garden, and if you miss a day, the garden simply waits.
  • Statistics you controlUsage statistics help us improve the lessons. No names, no photos, and a switch in For Parents turns them off.
  • Accounts are optionalEverything works on one device without signing in. A grown-up can sign in with Apple to sync progress.

iPhone, iPad and Mac

One course on every screen

Marker Lab on a Mac: the lesson “Tree by the Lake”, step 6 of 7, with the marker tray and the target picture Marker Lab on an iPhone: the Today screen with the current lesson and the garden

Screens shown in Ukrainian. The app also speaks English, Russian and Traditional Chinese.

Sign in with Apple, optional

The same lesson and step on your iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Works offline

Lessons, the Light Lab, printing and the photo lesson work without the internet.

Read to me

Every step can be read aloud, in all four languages.

Get your markers ready

Marker Lab is coming soon to the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Questions or ideas? Write to support@markerlab.app.

Coming soon to the App Store