Lessons

Lesson Info

Painting on Gum Paste

So what we need to do now is let's, add some pedal dust and make them look really alive. So what I'm going to do is get my colors out want to clean out my area, just a touch I don't want to clean up too much, because that would be too weird. So this is just a clarification for mini cupcake. Did you say p m e or pg and e? P m a precision machine engineering? Thank you. So yep, and they're out of, um, england, not quite the london area, but just outside of london. So if you're in the area, when I was in london, I did not have access to anything but public transportation, and I was not able to get there, which I was a little disappointed because I'll tell you what if I could load in my suitcase, I would have and my children's I made my kids carry back all kinds of things from england that we can't get here in the states and my boys as they were hauling their carry on luggage that was full of cake drums, and steph said, why do we have to carry this? I said, because I can't buy this at home...

, but keep moving, not a kind of mother keep going. Ok, so the first thing I'd like to do is let's color this first flower that we did, and can you guys see all kinds of colors? I had this nice little carry in case I have all kinds of colors you can by every color you can imagine, and then of course, you can mix whatever you can't buy, you can even probably make some of the stuff you can buy. Um, the point is, is that you just if you don't, if you don't want to buy every color in the rainbow by a few of the real basic colors in his darkest, you can get him, and then you confess him down with corn starch and white food color have wiped I have white color, so if I want a thin something down that's going to give me an opaque finish, if I thin it down with corn starch, that gives me a translucent type of look, okay? When we were coloring, we want to use brushes, and I like using good brushes as best as I can afford. I go through a lot of them, but I want to use a flat brush for getting a little edge on things, and you want to use a round brush for getting a softness. So if I want to get a soft blend, use around brush if you want to be kind of sharp, you use a square flat brush so for this flower I'm going to use a flat brush I've already used this color on this brush, so I've already got it dirty and I'm going to use hot magenta just because it's kind of a fantasy flower actually I might change colors because a fickle let's do use a deep magenta that's hot majority time and he used a deep magenta on this one um this is pretty good pigment so it's a good way to get yourself into trouble he'll end up on your hair in your face in your hands and your tables and then I but that color in there and I'm just going toe on the edge just draw that brush gently across to those pedals can you guys see that well enough? Can you see the difference that makes uh and I had this on a plaque so I have to dust very gently around that edge so I don't mess up my plaque too much the trick is is make him and then put him on the plaque sometimes I think ahead sometimes I don't that was an I don't situation you are not supposed to blow on your flowers, so having a little puff to puff off excess dust is to your advantage if you have an airbrush, you could blow flat air onto it that's how I work so I didn't drag my airbrush along I might puff online with my mouth since your four display I think I can maybe pull that off those little puffs that you used to blow the lint off your screen off your lenses or what cake decorators go out and buy to use with their flowers. All my cameramen are nodding their heads. Yeah, you see that? Ok, I'm going to do this now that was the flat brush. One of the things that I want to show you is a round brush and I'm gonna use the yellow another way to keep your colors and tactics after your flowers or made you can do what they call stephen in them, you literally weigh them over boiling steaming water that does a melting of the sugar on the surface and seals those colors so that the colors don't flake off onto the wedding cake, which for wedding cakes that's important. So I'm using the round brush I'm using some of the bright yellow and I'm going to come down into this area and just poke in a little of the yellow a lime green also it's good for this makes it look natural can you see the difference on that? And then if we pick up one of these leaves and I like to add a little of the color on the touch of the leads makesem blend in and look like they belong and then we can just took in this night's wet leaf right in there it's not tucking nice isn't it got another one odd numbers triangular shaped for good design it does not have to be a perfect triangle it just has to be triangular to work on this one here we go and I would call that good see how adding that color just makes it blossom come to life so that's our pink flower then let's use some of our daisies that we created and what I'm going to do here is let's use another round brush and this color of green is every time I make anything and use green dust and anything's left over it goes into this pot so it really is ah hodgepodge of colors but what I want to show you somewhat a little green around that daisy that's pretty heavy but we're gonna blow it off who broke a pedal? And can you see how the, um my little my little pressing it into the great is starting to show when you'd get it to that point and just very gently tapping I don't need to break him all the bits because I can do that just fine I have to blow in these just so it has a little natural look to it I don't just all the edges of the daisies that's a good way to break into bits but we've got that color going I forgot to dust my days he's that were on my display of peace are not my daisies my carnations but I wanted to show you if I use a soft pink and this is part of that pink remember I told you earlier that I'd made a pink for my class of twenty five students and I started with that full pigment of red a little tiny gram of it and had literally a mayonnaise jar filled with this pink that I kept mixing with white and corn starch and it was like trimble just kept expanding this is part of that I think so if I come and I take my flat brush and I drag it across to the edge of that carnation you can see how it makes all those it just kind of come to life and gives you more color makes a difference doesn't yeah and then if way said it a bright here on that yellow surface these air still wet so it some one thing about your coloring in your dusting is that if you start light you can go darker it's really hard to take color off but if that does become the case and you need to take color off one way to do it is use corn starch and just really kind of worked the corn starch and work the corn starch and you can get some of the color ofthe but not all of it and it's really a shame when you've spent so much time creating the flowers and then your record because you put on a weird color too dark, so it's easier to start light it's also a good idea and ok plan too um and I see and ok plan to have a piece of practice or broken one or a scrap that you can practice colors and isn't it funny how we just put that little pink flower into that little yellow plaque and what a difference it made if we add some of the green that we made, we can also make that different, more striking, so we've got one carnation and too little buds and we add some green to it he'd created a masterpiece or close to it. My masterpiece is not turning out with my migraine here it's fighting back, but you can see and I colored these the green and colored better in there I like it without the dusting too, but boy, I'll tell you what, I'll bet it's ho yeah, oh popped it off look at the difference look at the difference how fun the carnation makes a revived okay then we have our rose now I have some pink roses already made this particular rose has the one row of petals with the center that we made like this one then I added another rule of petals, so it was like this one and then I added a third cutting of pedals to make it this larger one so just seeing that you can see how you can make from this simple rose this is a simple rose most of our full size roses we do with individual pedals we make each one individually we attach and we wrap on we spend time loving, caressing and folding and messing with but with this particular one, we don't have to do that. This is three of the five pedal cutter that's all it is and yet we were able to create this way less time quick enough isn't going to pass the master's stander for a competition. No, it will not, but does it pass our customers and our family and friends? Hoo yeah, big time so I'm gonna take that soft pink again and I'm just going to pull it in with the flat brush that makes all those ages just pop a little bit thes things are the kind of things set people you know she was asking about how to build your business you do stuff like this a little above standard this is what will bring your business in people will come you build it they will come now that's very soft, very delicate um I'm ok with it but I think I'm going to go with the magenta what was at the deep magenta the deep imagined now let's add a little more there are people out there that can use up to thirteen different colors just color a single flower I'm not one of them sorry because usually when I'm color and um I'm coloring about fifty to one hundred of them lilies and orchids or one of those that you can really spend a lot of time coloring and again your color is going to make or break a flower too so I like that a little bit with the deep magenta has a little more effect to it and then we would put some dark green on this leaf and some of the deep magenta on the leaf you always have a touch of whatever the color of the flower is on the leaf it helps it look like it belongs as opposed to it's just a green thing is stuck on there okay, so that's our rose good job that's the pink rose let's talk about the orange rose and I will do well through this smaller one because it's probably a little more sip than the large one so let's that orange is fine except that it's got um it's got some sparkle to it which means it's not going to do here is well this is ah burnt terra cotta that could be very interesting it could be very interesting or it could be very horrible let's find out interesting or horrible dd dd well I don't think I have enough on their own make it interesting or horrible in that funny it's not really doing much I would have thought this pigment would be so striking that we wouldn't know what to do with it not doing much for me it's okay well off the excess sorry I had my hairbrush I'd be spraying it now that deep magenta that's got an effect look at that there we go you can see the difference look at that woo hoo and that deep magenta to this one see what happens oh yeah looks like something that you guys have in your garden doesn't it not my garden your garden speaking of gardens got a question out here okay um frozen photo would like to know when you deliver cakes with this work do you take spare flowers in case one breaks you bet and I rarely now if it's a single layer you know if it's like a little eight incher square cake you know and I'm just put flowers on top that's one thing but if I'm doing wedding cakes I usually take my flowers and a whole box with foam and I always take extras and I take extra leaves and I take extra filler flowers and I take all the extra stuff and then I put him on one seven there because they travel better that way and then a lot of times if something happens while you're traveling, you can use that flower or leaf to cover a mistake or an error or something. Who knows? And here's another thing that has happened to me several times is when I've gotten to a location and set up the wedding cake and they had planned to use something for the top of the cake and then they see with the flowers are they go not putting that on the top would you put flowers on the top that it's happened to me a lot? I have also had a lot of people who have said do you have an extra one? I would like to put it over with the sign in book or with, you know, with their photo or something and I graciously let it go even though I know it's about a fifteen dollars but I go because number one I want that to be the most specialty for them it's supposed to be and I want them to know that lucinda was workable and supportive and there for them all the way and if that means I'm letting our flower go, it goes so yes, yes take extras and then there's times that I thought I had extras and I got their man and I had it exactly the number needed so right down to the leaf though there's been a couple of times I've walked out of places and gone wow, just barely made that one work. Okay, did we have any other questions? How we do in here we have a question from baking mama, can you use the pedal dust while the gum paste is still pliable? Or do you need to wait for it too hard? Thie pedal dust really does work much better if the icing or the gum paste is set. Now there is a commercial type of gum paste out there is called sterling sterling paste, and that one is a very pliable, very unusual paste and that when you want a color while it's wet and that's, one of their selling points that they use with this paste is that you color it while it's with so you would cut out each petal, dust it while it's literally sitting there and then a symbol of already dusted um that's one of the few wins all the rest of our pace all the stuff that we make guess what it's better if you do it after it's dry on our calla lilies we want to dusty's with a pearl dust which I have and remember how I said earlier, if you dust it and then you steam um, so if you have, like, a kettle or clothing steamer or something like that or a pot of boiling water after you create your flowers, you literally you just literally hold him over the steam and kind of do like this and check to see where it's at and that will seal in the colors and give it a little gloss. But when it comes to doing your calla lilies, it really makes a huge difference in their finish, so if you dust them with the pearl dust, I got to get my brush a little softer here, and I don't know if you guys can see on camera, but, man, I got pearled us coming in all directions from that, and you can see the difference between destin and unvested, but once you get that pearl dust on and then you do that steam, they look just like a calla lily in your yard. And the other thing that you want to do with the calla lilies. If you're going for that natural look, is take your green and just do a little dusting of the grain along the base, and that will make it look more natural and realistic now I haven't talked much about them being on wires and sometimes you just have to have money wires. But one thing I want to tell you a quick is that if you use wires, you have to wrap him. You cannot stick this wire directly into a cake that is against every health clued out there. So you have to wrap up with floral tape and one of the tricks to doing the floral tape is you want to cut it in half? You don't want to use that hole with because it just gives too heavy the bulky of a rap. So one of the tricks is you want to wrap thes and here's, here's and here's a trick pull, pull out that tape, make a little flag like this, and then twist it and then notice I didn't have it top push it to the top and then go ahead and bring it down and I say is it comes back down and then you can do a lot more of these delicate flowers, and then once you have them wrapped, if you wrap them and put them together, that works your advantage to. And then once these air wrapped, you still really shouldn't stick him directly into the cake a good way to do it is cut a little drinking straw and put it into the cake and then put thes the wires into that straw so it doesn't tear and rip your cake apart and they stay and then sanitary wise the health department loves that they think that's the way to go um if you'll notice all of these flowers that we did except the calla lilies and truly you could even do the calla lilies without the wire I try to do him without the wire it's faster it's easier and unless I'm having something cascade down a cake I don't even need to wire you just mostly stickum on catching with a little butter cream and I put gum paste flowers in butter cream I put him on fund and I put him everywhere it doesn't matter they work any other questions uh we're good good okay did you guys have any other questions? Okay, these are pretty heavy said how would you put that on a fond out piece? You just stick a butter cream on it and stick it on the back of it I'm I didn't hear that the's flowers are pretty heavy right? So how would you stick that on the phone not kick if it's laying on the topic just sit on the top if you wanted on the side, let it dry and then a little bit of butter cream well maybe hold on if they're too heavy it may not a good way to stick something on that's heavy is mix a little piping jail and a little gum paste or a little fondant together makes a really you'll know it's like, and you kind of glop that on and then stick it and it will hold just about anything in place. Piping jill is something I didn't ask you to purchase or didn't really bring to show you, but piping jail is one of those products that number one a little bit goes a long way. You could do a lot with it, and it really is a very effect active method for attaching things like funding and gum paste too cardboard in each other, it's very especially if you mix it with a little gum paste and make this kind of tacky, nasty miss it looks horrible, but it really is very effective, and I think a lot of times people kind of missed the importance of how cool piping jealous so makes a great water effect, too. Well, you know what I would like? Okay, what I would love a couple of things I would love to have your final thoughts because we're about at that time, and how about a go forth and conquer in the cake decorating world, final thoughts and, well, number one, I have had a fabulous time so thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you for allowing me to be in your homes and a part of your lives for the last two days, or even the last fifteen minutes. Um, the other thing that I would like to say is that this is just the tip of the iceberg and it's only cake. Don't be afraid, try it. I mean, what's, the worst that can happen. It created ugly flower that somebody has to eat. Darn, don't be afraid to try things, and you guys can do it. This could be life changing for you, isabella. You could pay for your college education with it, you can travel the world with it. You could meet wonderful people and made great friendships. So just go forward and be fun with it. Have enjoyed it.