He introduced a number of progressions to painting in Cologne, especially by filling his backgrounds and landscapes with specific and elaborate details, and by rendering his figures with more bulk and volume. Wellesz described his paintings as evidencing an "intensity of feeling which gives a very special and very moving quality to his work. His devotion is reflected in his figures: it charges with symbolic meaning the smallest details of his paintings; and, in a hidden, almost magical way, it speaks from the concord of his pure and glowing colours." Lochner painted with oil, preparing the surface in a way typical of other North German artists; in some works, he attached canvas to the panel support underneath the usual chalk ground. This was probably done where there were to be large areas of plain gilding. Where the gold ground was to have a pattern such as a brocade, this was carved into the chalk ground before gilding, and, in some paintings, elements had moulded additions applied to raise the surface to be gilded. He employed a number of techniques when gilding, to give different effects. These included laying the leaf with water for burnished passages, and with oil or varnish sizing (mordant gilding) for the more decorative areas. His colour schemes tend to be bright and luminous, filled with varieties of red, blue and green pigments. He often employed ultramarine, then expensive and difficult to source. His figures are regularly outlined with red paint. He was innovative in his rendering of flesh tones, which he built up using lead whites to give pale complexions with almost porcelain qualities. In this, he refers to an older tradition of indicating women of high nobility whose paleness was associated with a life spent indoors, "shielded from toiling in the fields, which was the lot of most". In particular, this technique follows the Master of Veronica, although the earlier painter's figures had an almost yellowish, ivory hue. Lochner's Madonnas tend to be clothed in saturated blues which resonate with surrounding yellow, red and green paint. According to James Snyder, the artist "employed these four basic colors for his harmonies", but went beyond by using more subdued and deep hues in a technique referred to as "pure color". Like Conrad von Soest, Lochner often applied black cross-hatching on gold, usually to render metallic objects such as brooches, crowns or buckles, in imitation of goldsmiths work