Typical patterns used in Ndebele painting are abstract geometric shapes. Our system provides a set of pre-scanned patterns, both colored and uncolored, and a way to quickly browse through them. Patterns are grouped together in terms of their basic structure. For example, patterns like the ones in Figure 2, upper and lower right, belong to the same group. For the initial phase of the research interface, a computer science student of Ndebele origin created a number of commonly used patterns, using commercially available painting tools. That allowed us to focus on the rapid production of painting compositions in the virtual environment and address the drawing of basic patterns at a later stage.