In addition to the obligatory painting and drawing courses, the Munich Ladies' Academy provided its members with a wide range of technical devices. These included a kiln for glass and ceramics. It can be assumed that Ida Paulin made active use of this, experimented with glass colours and practiced a wide variety of firing techniques.
In addition, she created reverse glass paintings, which she backed with fabrics or foils. She also devoted herself to the material wood, designed and manufactured caskets, carved reliefs and picture frames, and tried out pyrography. In addition, the production of batiks, embroidery and lacquer paintings as well as the decoration of porcelain vessels and accessories were her focus. Since the s, Ida Paulin had also designed decorations for porcelain.
For this purpose, she purchased inexpensive white ware with a focus on modernity as well as simple lines and shapes. The majority of these pieces date from the geometric Art Nouveau period, the most recent ones belong to the functional forms of the s. The motifs she used were variations on leaf, spiral and dot ornaments, such as those in the stencilled designs by Ludwig Hohlwein or Otto Prutscher from Vienna.
She also took up the dentilwork, which the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory had used since The adoption of all these motifs shows that Ida Paulin was able to draw on the broad spectrum of modern sources of inspiration known at the time.
During her studies, she tried to secure her academy fees and livelihood by selling her paintings and individual commissioned works. In , her decorative arts works were added to the list. While the critiques of her paintings ranged from enthusiastic to scathing, her decorative arts creations received consistently positive reviews. The portraits she created show a pastose and powerful painting style. With sure brushstrokes, she painted empathetic compositions, whose poignancy is reminiscent of Leo Putz and the Post-Impressionist painting of the artists' association "Die Scholle".
