Louise De Masi Art School

In this two-part intermediate tutorial, Louise guides you through painting an old, weathered lantern filled with beautiful rusty oranges, reds, and browns.

This painting is a great opportunity to loosen up and allow watercolour to create some of the texture for you. You’ll work with wet-on-wet washes, soft and lost edges, blooms, and layered colour to capture the aged metal without trying to describe every mark or imperfection.

The glass introduces a different challenge. Rather than trying to paint every reflection you see, Louise shows you how to simplify the glass into shapes of light, midtone, and dark, gradually building the values while preserving areas of white paper.

As the painting develops, you’ll add rust, shadows, reflections, and small details to give the lantern form and character, finishing with a few stronger accents and textural marks.

• Creating soft and lost edges by allowing paint to flow into the background
• Using wet-on-wet washes to build loose, expressive colour
• Mixing vibrant oranges, deep reds, burgundy, and rusty browns
• Creating blooms deliberately to add texture and interest
• Simplifying complicated glass reflections into shapes of light and dark
• Building transparent glass gradually with layered values
• Preserving white paper for the brightest reflections
• Using masking fluid to protect fine details
• Creating depth by making some elements appear behind the glass and others in front
• Building the aged, weathered appearance of metal with layered colour
• Using an eradicator brush to lift highlights and break up hard edges
• Balancing soft, hard, and broken edges throughout a painting
• Knowing when to let the paint move naturally rather than trying to control every mark