Painting & Illustration Skills

Painting skills teach AI agents how traditional media behave and how to simulate authentic artistic techniques in generative art. Load these via the load_skill tool.

Available skills

painting-foundations

Core painting principles that apply across all media:

Value structure — organize compositions into 3-5 value groups before adding color
Color temperature — warm light / cool shadow (or vice versa) for dimensional form
Composition — large shapes first, supporting shapes second, detail last
Medium choice — match the medium to the desired visual quality
Layer sequencing — plan the build-up order before starting

load_skill({ skill: "painting-foundations" })

watercolor-techniques

Simulate watercolor behavior in generative art:

Wet-on-wet — soft diffused edges, color bleeding, organic shapes
Wet-on-dry — crisp edges, controlled washes, layered glazes
Glazing — transparent overlays for optical color mixing
Granulation — pigment settling into paper texture for natural grain
Tool sequencing — large wash first, medium shapes, then fine detail with dry brush

load_skill({ skill: "watercolor-techniques" })

ink-illustration

Line-based illustration techniques:

Line weight hierarchy — thicker lines for foreground, thinner for distance
Hatching for value — parallel lines, cross-hatching, contour hatching
Brush vs. nib marks — expressive brush strokes vs. precise pen lines
Negative space — define form through what is left white
Ink wash — diluted ink for tonal values and atmosphere

load_skill({ skill: "ink-illustration" })

mark-making

Control the character of individual marks:

Gestural energy — fast, loose marks for movement and life
Calligraphic line — varying pressure for thick-thin transitions
Stippling — dots for value and texture
Hatching — parallel lines for directional shading
Scumbling — irregular overlapping marks for texture

load_skill({ skill: "mark-making" })

material-behavior

Understand how physical media simulate in digital:

Watercolor — transparency, bleeding, granulation, drying edges
Charcoal — soft gradients, smudging, erasing to white, grittiness
Ink — flow control, feathering, drying characteristics
Oil — thickness, blendability, impasto texture, drying time
Pastel — dustiness, layering, blending with fingers

load_skill({ skill: "material-behavior" })

value-structure

Organize tonal values for readable compositions:

3-value study — dark, mid, light — the simplest readable composition
5-value range — add quarter-tones for more nuanced modeling
Value hierarchy — strongest contrast at the focal point
Value compression — reduce value range for atmosphere and distance
Notan — Japanese dark-light design for balanced compositions

load_skill({ skill: "value-structure" })

atmospheric-depth

Create convincing depth through atmospheric effects:

Value compression — distant objects converge toward middle values
Temperature shift — warm foreground, cool background (aerial perspective)
Edge softness — sharp edges in foreground, soft edges in distance
Detail reduction — less detail and texture with increasing distance
Scale diminution — consistent size reduction with depth

load_skill({ skill: "atmospheric-depth" })

load_skill — load a skill for the current session
suggest_skills — get skill recommendations
Painting plugin — painting layer types and tools
Process Skills — studio process skills

Painting & Illustration

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