diff --git a/mask.go b/mask.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed4d8a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/mask.go
@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
+// Copyright (c) 2026 the go-widgets/painter authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-3-Clause license that can be
+// found in the LICENSE file at the root of this repository.
+
+package painter
+
+// MaskPainter is an optional Painter capability: it paints ONE colour through
+// an 8-bit coverage mask in a single call.
+//
+// This is what a glyph is. A rasterised glyph is not an image — it carries no
+// colour of its own, only how much of each pixel the outline covers — and text
+// is the one thing every widget draws. Before this, a font back-end had to walk
+// the mask calling PutPixel, which shifts, bounds-tests, clip-tests and blends
+// one pixel at a time, and had to scale the coverage by the ink's alpha itself
+// on every pixel.
+//
+// mask holds one coverage byte per pixel, row-major with the given stride, and
+// mask[0] is the pixel at dst's top-left. 0 leaves the surface untouched, 255
+// lays down ink at its own alpha, and everything between composites — which is
+// exactly what makes a glyph edge smooth rather than jagged.
+//
+// [ImagePainter] carries pixels that bring their own colour; this carries
+// coverage for a colour the caller names. A back-end may implement either,
+// both, or neither.
+type MaskPainter interface {
+	DrawMask(dst Rect, mask []byte, stride int, ink RGBA)
+}
+
+// DrawMask paints ink through mask. Implements MaskPainter.
+//
+// Where it may write is decided once, like every other primitive here, so the
+// per-pixel work is a coverage lookup and a blend and nothing else.
+func (p *PixelPainter) DrawMask(dst Rect, mask []byte, stride int, ink RGBA) {
+	if dst.W <= 0 || dst.H <= 0 || stride <= 0 || ink.A == 0 {
+		return
+	}
+	dst = shiftRect(p.off, dst)
+
+	eff := intersect(dst, Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: p.Width, H: p.Height})
+	if n := len(p.clip); n > 0 {
+		eff = intersect(eff, p.clip[n-1])
+	}
+	if eff.W <= 0 || eff.H <= 0 {
+		return
+	}
+
+	full := ink.A == 0xFF
+	for y := eff.Y; y < eff.Y+eff.H; y++ {
+		maskRow := (y - dst.Y) * stride
+		dstRow := y * p.Width * 4
+		if maskRow+(eff.X-dst.X)+eff.W > len(mask) {
+			// A caller whose mask is shorter than the rectangle it named has a
+			// bug; the painter drops the rows it cannot read rather than
+			// panicking, exactly as it drops a short Buf.
+			continue
+		}
+		if dstRow+(eff.X+eff.W)*4 > len(p.Buf) {
+			continue
+		}
+		for x := eff.X; x < eff.X+eff.W; x++ {
+			cov := mask[maskRow+(x-dst.X)]
+			if cov == 0 {
+				continue
+			}
+			a := uint32(cov)
+			if !full {
+				a = a * uint32(ink.A) / 255
+			}
+			off := dstRow + x*4
+			if a == 0xFF {
+				p.Buf[off], p.Buf[off+1], p.Buf[off+2], p.Buf[off+3] = ink.R, ink.G, ink.B, 0xFF
+				continue
+			}
+			if a == 0 {
+				continue
+			}
+			// The same arithmetic as blendInto, written out rather than
+			// called: identical rounding, including the alpha byte, which
+			// truncates where the colour bytes round. Getting that last detail
+			// wrong is invisible over an opaque ground and shows up over a
+			// translucent one, which is why TestDrawMaskBlendsExactlyLikePutPixel
+			// sweeps every coverage against several grounds instead of trusting
+			// a handful of cases.
+			inv := 255 - a
+			p.Buf[off] = uint8((uint32(ink.R)*a + uint32(p.Buf[off])*inv + 127) / 255)
+			p.Buf[off+1] = uint8((uint32(ink.G)*a + uint32(p.Buf[off+1])*inv + 127) / 255)
+			p.Buf[off+2] = uint8((uint32(ink.B)*a + uint32(p.Buf[off+2])*inv + 127) / 255)
+			p.Buf[off+3] = uint8(a + uint32(p.Buf[off+3])*inv/255)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+// DrawMask puts a coloured cell wherever the mask is more than half covered:
+// a cell is either the glyph's colour or it is not, so the coverage has to
+// resolve to a decision. Implements MaskPainter.
+func (p *CellPainter) DrawMask(dst Rect, mask []byte, stride int, ink RGBA) {
+	if dst.W <= 0 || dst.H <= 0 || stride <= 0 || ink.A == 0 {
+		return
+	}
+	for dy := 0; dy < dst.H; dy++ {
+		row := dy * stride
+		if row+dst.W > len(mask) {
+			continue
+		}
+		for dx := 0; dx < dst.W; dx++ {
+			if mask[row+dx] < 128 {
+				continue
+			}
+			// PutPixel already promotes a pixel to a filled cell and applies
+			// the clip and translation.
+			p.PutPixel(dst.X+dx, dst.Y+dy, ink)
+		}
+	}
+}
diff --git a/mask_test.go b/mask_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d0b3fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/mask_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,268 @@
+// Copyright (c) 2026 the go-widgets/painter authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-3-Clause license that can be
+// found in the LICENSE file at the root of this repository.
+
+package painter
+
+import "testing"
+
+// maskReference is the loop DrawMask replaced: the way a font back-end had to
+// paint a glyph, scaling the coverage by the ink's alpha itself and handing
+// each pixel to PutPixel, which applies the translation, the surface bounds,
+// the clip and the blend.
+func maskReference(p *PixelPainter, dst Rect, mask []byte, stride int, ink RGBA) {
+	for dy := 0; dy < dst.H; dy++ {
+		for dx := 0; dx < dst.W; dx++ {
+			cov := mask[dy*stride+dx]
+			if cov == 0 {
+				continue
+			}
+			a := uint8(uint32(cov) * uint32(ink.A) / 255)
+			p.PutPixel(dst.X+dx, dst.Y+dy, RGBA{R: ink.R, G: ink.G, B: ink.B, A: a})
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+// glyphMask builds a w*h coverage mask with a hole, a solid core and soft
+// edges — the shape of a real glyph, so no case is a uniform block.
+func glyphMask(w, h int) []byte {
+	m := make([]byte, w*h)
+	for y := 0; y < h; y++ {
+		for x := 0; x < w; x++ {
+			switch {
+			case x == 0 || y == 0:
+				m[y*w+x] = 0
+			case x < w/3:
+				m[y*w+x] = uint8(x * 255 / max(w/3, 1))
+			default:
+				m[y*w+x] = 255
+			}
+		}
+	}
+	return m
+}
+
+func TestDrawMaskMatchesTheLoopItReplaced(t *testing.T) {
+	mask := glyphMask(9, 7)
+	opaque := RGBA{R: 240, G: 30, B: 90, A: 255}
+	half := RGBA{R: 240, G: 30, B: 90, A: 128}
+
+	for _, tc := range []struct {
+		name   string
+		dst    Rect
+		ink    RGBA
+		clip   *Rect
+		tx, ty int
+	}{
+		{name: "opaque ink", dst: Rect{X: 3, Y: 3, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque},
+		{name: "translucent ink", dst: Rect{X: 3, Y: 3, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: half},
+		{name: "off the left and top", dst: Rect{X: -4, Y: -3, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque},
+		{name: "off the right and bottom", dst: Rect{X: 14, Y: 15, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque},
+		{name: "entirely off the surface", dst: Rect{X: 40, Y: 40, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque},
+		{name: "clipped", dst: Rect{X: 2, Y: 2, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque, clip: &Rect{X: 4, Y: 4, W: 3, H: 3}},
+		{name: "clipped away", dst: Rect{X: 2, Y: 2, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque, clip: &Rect{X: 30, Y: 30, W: 2, H: 2}},
+		{name: "translated", dst: Rect{X: 1, Y: 1, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: opaque, tx: 5, ty: 4},
+		{name: "translated and clipped", dst: Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 9, H: 7}, ink: half, tx: 3, ty: 3, clip: &Rect{X: 2, Y: 2, W: 6, H: 6}},
+	} {
+		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
+			run := func(f func(p *PixelPainter)) *PixelPainter {
+				p := newPix(24, 24)
+				// A non-black ground, so a blend that wrongly behaves as a copy
+				// shows up instead of hiding in zeroes.
+				p.FillRect(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 24, H: 24}, RGBA{R: 20, G: 70, B: 40, A: 255})
+				if tc.tx != 0 || tc.ty != 0 {
+					p.PushTranslate(tc.tx, tc.ty)
+				}
+				if tc.clip != nil {
+					p.PushClip(*tc.clip)
+				}
+				f(p)
+				if tc.clip != nil {
+					p.PopClip()
+				}
+				if tc.tx != 0 || tc.ty != 0 {
+					p.PopTranslate()
+				}
+				return p
+			}
+
+			got := run(func(p *PixelPainter) { p.DrawMask(tc.dst, mask, 9, tc.ink) })
+			want := run(func(p *PixelPainter) { maskReference(p, tc.dst, mask, 9, tc.ink) })
+
+			for i := range got.Buf {
+				if got.Buf[i] != want.Buf[i] {
+					px := i / 4
+					t.Fatalf("pixel %d,%d byte %d: DrawMask %d, the loop it replaced %d",
+						px%24, px/24, i%4, got.Buf[i], want.Buf[i])
+				}
+			}
+		})
+	}
+}
+
+// DrawMask writes the blend itself instead of calling blendInto, which is
+// worth 2x and worth exactly nothing if the arithmetic drifts. Every coverage
+// value, against several ink alphas and several grounds -- including
+// translucent ones, where the alpha byte truncates while the colour bytes
+// round, and where a plausible-looking formula is wrong by one.
+func TestDrawMaskBlendsExactlyLikePutPixel(t *testing.T) {
+	mask := make([]byte, 256)
+	for i := range mask {
+		mask[i] = uint8(i)
+	}
+	for _, inkA := range []uint8{255, 200, 128, 64, 1} {
+		for _, ground := range []RGBA{
+			{R: 0, G: 0, B: 0, A: 255},
+			{R: 255, G: 255, B: 255, A: 255},
+			{R: 90, G: 140, B: 200, A: 255},
+			{R: 90, G: 140, B: 200, A: 128},
+			{R: 3, G: 5, B: 7, A: 1},
+			{},
+		} {
+			ink := RGBA{R: 240, G: 30, B: 90, A: inkA}
+			run := func(f func(p *PixelPainter)) *PixelPainter {
+				p := newPix(256, 1)
+				for i := 0; i < len(p.Buf); i += 4 {
+					p.Buf[i], p.Buf[i+1], p.Buf[i+2], p.Buf[i+3] = ground.R, ground.G, ground.B, ground.A
+				}
+				f(p)
+				return p
+			}
+			dst := Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 256, H: 1}
+			got := run(func(p *PixelPainter) { p.DrawMask(dst, mask, 256, ink) })
+			want := run(func(p *PixelPainter) { maskReference(p, dst, mask, 256, ink) })
+			for i := range got.Buf {
+				if got.Buf[i] != want.Buf[i] {
+					t.Fatalf("ink alpha %d over ground %+v: coverage %d byte %d = %d, PutPixel gives %d",
+						inkA, ground, i/4, i%4, got.Buf[i], want.Buf[i])
+				}
+			}
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+// A stride wider than the rectangle is the normal case: a glyph is a window
+// into a bigger mask atlas, and only its own columns may be read.
+func TestDrawMaskHonoursTheStride(t *testing.T) {
+	// 8 wide, but only the first 3 columns of each row belong to the glyph.
+	const stride = 8
+	mask := make([]byte, stride*3)
+	for y := 0; y < 3; y++ {
+		mask[y*stride], mask[y*stride+1], mask[y*stride+2] = 255, 255, 255
+		for x := 3; x < stride; x++ {
+			mask[y*stride+x] = 255 // would show if the stride were ignored
+		}
+	}
+	p := newPix(12, 6)
+	p.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 3, H: 3}, mask, stride, RGBA{R: 255, G: 255, B: 255, A: 255})
+
+	if p.Buf[(0*12+2)*4+3] == 0 {
+		t.Error("the glyph's own last column was not painted")
+	}
+	if p.Buf[(0*12+3)*4+3] != 0 {
+		t.Error("painted past the rectangle, reading the neighbouring glyph")
+	}
+	if p.Buf[(1*12+0)*4+3] == 0 {
+		t.Error("the second row started at the wrong offset")
+	}
+}
+
+// Nonsense arguments leave the surface alone; a mask shorter than the rectangle
+// costs the rows that are missing, not a panic.
+func TestDrawMaskRejectsNonsense(t *testing.T) {
+	p := newPix(8, 8)
+	full := Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 4, H: 4}
+	white := RGBA{R: 255, G: 255, B: 255, A: 255}
+	m := glyphMask(4, 4)
+
+	p.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 0, H: 4}, m, 4, white) // empty destination
+	p.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 4, H: 0}, m, 4, white) // empty destination
+	p.DrawMask(full, m, 0, white)                         // no stride
+	p.DrawMask(full, m, 4, RGBA{R: 255, G: 255, B: 255})  // invisible ink
+	for i := range p.Buf {
+		if p.Buf[i] != 0 {
+			t.Fatal("a malformed call painted something")
+		}
+	}
+
+	// Short mask: the rows that exist land, the rest are dropped.
+	p.DrawMask(full, m[:8], 4, white)
+	if p.Buf[3] == 0 && p.Buf[(1*8+1)*4+3] == 0 {
+		t.Error("a short mask painted nothing at all")
+	}
+}
+
+// A short Buf is tolerated the way PutPixel tolerates it.
+func TestDrawMaskShortBuffer(t *testing.T) {
+	p := &PixelPainter{Buf: make([]byte, 4*2*4), Width: 4, Height: 4}
+	m := make([]byte, 16)
+	for i := range m {
+		m[i] = 255
+	}
+	p.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 4, H: 4}, m, 4, RGBA{R: 1, G: 2, B: 3, A: 255})
+	if p.Buf[3] == 0 {
+		t.Error("the rows that did fit were not painted")
+	}
+}
+
+// The cell back-end resolves coverage to a decision: a cell is the glyph's
+// colour or it is not.
+func TestCellPainterDrawMask(t *testing.T) {
+	c := &CellPainter{Cells: make([]Cell, 6*6), W: 6, H: 6}
+	m := []byte{
+		255, 10, 200,
+		0, 130, 127,
+	}
+	white := RGBA{R: 255, G: 255, B: 255, A: 255}
+	c.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 3, H: 2}, m, 3, white)
+
+	if c.Cells[0].Fg.A == 0 {
+		t.Error("full coverage left the cell empty")
+	}
+	if c.Cells[1].Fg.A != 0 {
+		t.Error("a tenth of coverage filled a cell")
+	}
+	if c.Cells[6+1].Fg.A == 0 {
+		t.Error("just over half coverage left the cell empty")
+	}
+	if c.Cells[6+2].Fg.A != 0 {
+		t.Error("just under half coverage filled a cell")
+	}
+
+	// Degenerate calls are ignored rather than fatal.
+	c.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 0, H: 2}, m, 3, white)
+	c.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 3, H: 2}, m, 0, white)
+	c.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 3, H: 2}, m, 3, RGBA{})
+	c.DrawMask(Rect{X: 0, Y: 0, W: 3, H: 4}, m, 3, white) // mask ends early
+}
+
+func TestPaintersImplementMaskPainter(t *testing.T) {
+	var _ MaskPainter = (*PixelPainter)(nil)
+	var _ MaskPainter = (*CellPainter)(nil)
+}
+
+// A page of text: 2000 glyph-sized masks, which is the order a full window of
+// labels issues.
+func BenchmarkDrawMask(b *testing.B) {
+	p := newPix(1000, 700)
+	m := glyphMask(9, 14)
+	ink := RGBA{R: 220, G: 220, B: 220, A: 255}
+	b.ResetTimer()
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		for g := 0; g < 2000; g++ {
+			p.DrawMask(Rect{X: (g * 11) % 980, Y: (g / 89) * 16 % 680, W: 9, H: 14}, m, 9, ink)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func BenchmarkMaskPerPixel(b *testing.B) {
+	p := newPix(1000, 700)
+	m := glyphMask(9, 14)
+	ink := RGBA{R: 220, G: 220, B: 220, A: 255}
+	b.ResetTimer()
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		for g := 0; g < 2000; g++ {
+			maskReference(p, Rect{X: (g * 11) % 980, Y: (g / 89) * 16 % 680, W: 9, H: 14}, m, 9, ink)
+		}
+	}
+}