What is inkpainting?

InkPainting is a browser-based drawing tool for creating traditional Chinese ink paintings. There is nothing to install and no server required: you clone the repository, open the main HTML file in any modern browser, and start drawing. Everything runs locally in the browser using standard web technologies. The tool simulates how physical Chinese ink and paper actually behave. It offers four brush types, each with its own character: a precise wolf-hair brush, a looser sheep-hair brush, a dry-tip scatter brush, and a pipe brush for flooding ink. Eight levels of wetness control how the ink flows and spreads. Wet ink soaks into the paper and bleeds outward, dry ink stays fixed and resists being washed away by a water brush. Eight classic color options cover ink black, flower blue, cinnabar, pollen yellow, and others. The paper itself is also simulated. Four types of Xuan paper are available, each with its own texture and ink-absorption behavior. You can add inscriptions in vertically arranged Chinese text and apply seals in carved or raised styles. A local gallery lets you save works in progress and export finished pieces as PNG files. Mobile support is included. On a phone or tablet, panels slide in from the sides and a bottom toolbar replaces the desktop sidebar layout. Touch drawing is handled with standard pointer events. The entire painting engine is a single JavaScript file of roughly 2,000 lines with no external dependencies beyond two Google Fonts. Works are saved to browser local storage, with no cloud account or login required. The README is written in Chinese. The project is MIT licensed.