Bespoke Online Mentoring

Nearly twenty years of our teaching, now at your easel.

Bespoke online mentoring with ZincBlue
Personalised studio mentoring for painters, in any medium

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We’re a specialist oil painting school, and our programmes have been refined over nearly twenty years of teaching. ZincBlue brings that experience to your own painting, individually and very affordably, whatever medium you work in.

• See what’s working in your painting, and understand why.

• Spot problems you might not have noticed yourself.

• Get practical ideas to improve composition, colour and values.

• Know what to concentrate on in your next painting session.

• Build confidence and develop your own artistic judgement.

• Return as your painting develops and get fresh guidance at every stage.

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This is where your painting gets better

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Upload a photo of a painting you’re working on. ZincBlue tells you what’s working, what to change next and why, then helps you at the easel. Built on twenty years of Martin Kinnear’s teaching.

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How ZincBlue mentoring works

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1. Compose. Never work with an uninspiring reference again. ZincBlue helps you turn ideas, sketches and inspirational images into strong painting compositions.

2. Get a staged plan. ZincBlue turns your composition into a step-by-step painting plan for any medium and palette, so you know what to do, in what order, and why.

3. Get help at your easel. From mixing a colour to balancing values across the whole work, ZincBlue answers the questions the painting raises and helps you judge what to do next.

4. Actionable critique. Compare your work at different stages, against your reference or against a style you admire. Use the built-in Labs for personalised mentoring on colour, value or style.

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Not a chatbot. A painting teacher.

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General AI tools talk about painting. ZincBlue looks at yours, and teaches from what it finds. Colour, value, temperature and structure are measured from your own image. It diagnoses what’s holding the painting back the way a tutor does at the easel, using Martin Kinnear’s critique method. AI only writes the guidance up in plain English. It never paints, alters or generates your images.

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It works in oils, watercolour, acrylic and gouache, with colour advice matched to more than 700 real artists’ paints, on your phone, tablet or desktop.

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Developed by Martin Kinnear

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Martin Kinnear is a guest lecturer in painting at the Royal College of Art, ranked the world’s number one university for art and design for twelve years running. He is also a doctoral scholar at the Courtauld Institute of Art, ranked number one in the world for the history of art (QS World University Rankings 2026). Very few painting tutors can offer that combination.

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“My expectation of what the app would do was massively exceeded. It was like being on the diploma, with the addition of a personal tutor at my easel.” Brian, diploma painter

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Personal mentoring for less than a single hour of one-to-one tuition a month

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Your first critique is free, with no sign-up needed. Membership starts at £34.99 a month, and you can cancel at any time.

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Advanced Oils members get ZincBlue Annual free as part of their membership.