Apparently, at my house, FAIL tastes like sweet....

[anastasiav]

Just to update folks after this post, have continued with the sugar art stuff, but I won't have anything ready to display at Mudthaw.

If it weren't K&Q's I'd probably be ok. But I just don't feel like taking a half-done, half-assed project to that particular event. It doesn't seem right, somehow. Basically, if I spent every single available hour working on this between now and Friday morning I could get something ready to show, but I'm just not that ... dedicated. I prefer spending time to play trucks with my son, if I want to.



I've been working on larger scale dishes, with mixed results: Some pictures -

Small Bowl

I formed it over a small glass bowl and I'm very happy with the overall shape of it, as well as how thin I was able to get the paste. However, as you can see clearly in the photo, I wasn't able to fully smooth it over the bowl-form, so it has wrinkles and folds around the edge. I know there is a way to get it to form more smoothly over the form (because they do it with cakes) I just haven't gotten the technique down yet. Its very sold, though, and gets more solid as it dries. Two more photos:





My original idea with the small bowl was to use it as the bottom for a sort of compote:



But the top of the compote broke when I was sanding the edge, so I'm going to use it as a test piece for putting on gilding instead. (Its just sitting on there for the photo rather than being carefully fastened down, which is why its all crooked.)

kuzu_no_ha had pointed me last week to Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture, a company that makes silicone molds that are designed for use with concrete to make tabletop gaming settings. I ordered the Roman Temple mold from them, and it arrived at the end of the week.

Here's the mold, with a bonus baby spoon for scale:


Overall, it works pretty well. I broke down and bought some pottery tools (including an ultra thin scraper) that are making working with this mold easier, but the one issue with it is that you need to cast this mold at least 13 times to make the roman temple pictured, and while casting it with plaster of paris or concrete (as its designed for) you can do about a cast an hour and so get a full set of blocks in a day or two, with the sugar paste I find that I need to let it set at least two hours, and ideally more like 4-6, in order to get the tiny bits out while preserving the detail of the mold. I did two on Saturday and two on Sunday, but its going to be one per night from here on out, which means I'd need ten or so days to finish the casting, and then probably another full open day (like a Saturday) to sand and build. So, its a promising way to go, but time consuming.

Here are some of the pieces I cast from this mold:


I'm considering buying some impression mats in cobblestone or brick texture to try and create larger items (like the big castles shown in the wedding feast illustration, but that's more playing yet.

I did one sugar plate pour yesterday but it continued to foam up and crystallize too fast (it actually crystallized and hardened in the pot as I was pouring it) so that's also a "work in progress".



In other news, I made Mr E an "angry PB&J" for lunch on Saturday and he was amused by it:

Comments

[soteltie.livejournal.com]

With cakes and fondant, I think the big trick is draping a piece that has quite a lot of excess (several inches), so that most of the folds get cut off. They use a fondant smoothing tool, to avoid fingerprints and fingernail marks. You could probably look at one online and improvise.