Paint Coverage Calculator

How far a quantity of artist paint will go, how much a surface needs, and how thin a glaze can be taken.

Surface length cm

Surface width cm

Number of layers

A first block in, a second pass and a glaze is three. Use 0.5 for a single wash over a large area.

How thickly you paint

Glazing covers two to three times the area of a flat layer from the same volume. Impasto uses three to five times as much.

Your own coverage figure sq m per litre

Leave at zero to use the figure from the choice above. If you have painted this surface before, put your measured figure here.

Extra for an absorbent ground on the first layer %

Thirty to fifty percent on unprimed or thinly primed canvas for the first layer only.

Reserve for paint left on the palette %

Ten to fifteen percent for a session with fast drying acrylics and repeated mixing.

Tube or jar size ml

Common sizes are 37 ml and 200 ml.

Price per tube

Optional. Used for the paint cost of the piece.

Reset

Free calculator by Handcraft worked examples and methodology No account, nothing stored.