Easel by Zaweba on Mac and Linux
A Mac and Linux version of Easel by Zaweba wraps the same studio page in Electron, so the painting studio works beyond Windows.
Easel started as a Windows program, and its main release still lists Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) and the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, which comes with Windows 11. But painters use all kinds of computers. So there is also a Mac and Linux version of Easel by Zaweba, which uses Electron around the same studio page.
This article explains what that means, why it is built that way, and what to expect.
The same studio inside
The heart of Easel is a studio page: the surfaces, the paints, the palette, the tilt, the masks, the guides, the time-lapse. On Windows, that page runs inside WebView2. On Mac and Linux, it runs inside Electron.
Electron is a well known way of running a web based app as a desktop program. Many familiar desktop apps are built with it. Because Easel's studio is the same page in both cases, the Mac and Linux version uses the same painting engine as the Windows one, rather than a separate rewrite.
Why the graphics card still matters
Easel paints on the graphics card using WebGL2. That is true whichever system you use. The paint simulation, the Kubelka-Munk colour mixing and the impasto lighting all run on the GPU.
On Windows, Easel asks for the high-performance chip and offers a View option to switch to the power-saving chip after a restart. Either way, if frames come late, wet paint moves a little slower instead of the drawing lagging. That same idea of keeping your strokes responsive is part of the shared studio.
Big canvases need plenty of memory on any machine. An A3 sheet at 300 DPI uses about 1 GB, and the cap on canvas size is 24 million pixels. Start with a smaller canvas if your computer is modest.
Free and offline
The Mac and Linux version follows the same principles as the Windows one. Easel is free software under the EULA, fully offline, with no account. Everything happens on your computer.
What to expect
Because the studio page is shared, the tools, paints and surfaces you read about in other Easel articles describe the same studio. Some parts of the Windows release talk to other Windows programs, such as the screensaver export through Screensavers by Zaweba, which makes Windows screensavers. Expect features that depend on Windows itself to belong to the Windows version.
Moving between systems
If you paint on more than one computer, the keyboard shortcuts editor helps. It can import and export shortcuts as JSON, so you can carry the same keys from one machine to another.
Pictures are saved as .zeasel, a ZIP holding the state buffers, surface, palette, masks, sheet and time-lapse. Keeping your work in that format means everything about a painting, including wet paint, is kept together in one file.
Who it is for
The Mac and Linux version is for painters who don't use Windows but want the same natural-media studio: watercolour that blooms, oil that stays wet, pencil that catches the grain. It brings Easel by Zaweba to the computers they already own.
