You might remember my very first dodecahedron star lantern that I posted last Summer. I fell in love with our bold crayon colored lantern, but I still wanted to find the time to make more in the original soft style of oiled watercolor papers. It had been brought to my attention several times that the tutorial I linked to no longer exists in Blogland, and I noticed on my blog statistics that quite a few people have found their way here while Googling “dodecahedron star lantern tutorial.”
I did a quick internet search and realized that most of the other search results linked back to the same tutorial that no longer exists…so I decided to recreate it! Not quite as beautifully explained or photographed as the original, but I couldn’t leave all those Google searchers hanging, could I? 😉
I started by painting two 11″x14″ wet-on-wet watercolor paintings, just some basic color washes since they are going to get cut up into smaller pieces. Once the paint was dry I rubbed the papers with a thick layer of olive oil until it was saturated through to the back side, blotted off the excess and allowed the paintings to dry overnight.
While I was waiting for the paintings to dry, I printed out my Pentagon Template and used my Xacto knife to cut out one of the shapes to use as a stencil.
You will also need to glue the inside flaps at the seam, as well as the inside flaps at the top and bottom of the lantern. If you choose to add a base to your lantern, now would also be the time to add the 11th pentagon to the bottom of the lantern. I like to be able to slip my lantern right over my candle, so I choose to leave both the top and bottom open.
Melanie says
Thank you for the tutorial. My friend and I are in the midst of creating these and we left out the step of oiling. Is it necessary? What is the purpose of doing this? Will it catch fire? Does it make them more translucent? Looking forward to your reply….
Heidi says
Hi Melanie, the oiling step is optional, however, it does help the paper become more translucent which is preferable if you’re working with thicker watercolor paper.