Airbrushing Tips by Emma Ball
Emma Ball is a multi-gold award winning artist and owner of Emma-Lou Cakes, Manchester and is about to share some key tips to get an amazing airbrushing finish.
Don’t be afraid of airbrushing if you are a beginner, Emma’s handy guide will help you to soon master this skill.
Airbrushing is an amazing way to take your cakes to the next level. You can add shading, special effects or simply spray a whole white cake to make it the colour you desire saving you all the kneading time mixing the colour into the sugarpaste.
Airbrushing for beginners can be slightly intimidating but once you’ve had a play, and realise the mistakes can be fixed, it’s easy to start gaining confidence in learning a new skill.
“Keep the pen nice and steady, make sure the colour cup stays upright”
The most common mistakes that happen whilst airbrushing are –
- The airbrush splatters leaving little unwanted dots of colour
- Accidentally spilling colour out of the airbrush cup
- Simply airbrushing the wrong area of the cake
- Not cleaning your airbrush regularly as colour can build up, blocking the needle
- Avoid future spillages by taking your time!
All these can be easily fixed. This is where vodka (or any clear alcohol) becomes our best friend ….if you follow the steps under, you will soon master this incredible tool.
Finally, Emma’s last piece of advice would be to think about your overall design of the cake, any mistakes can be quickly covered up by adding decorations like sugar flowers or models. There is no need to spend so much time fixing a mistake if you realise it can be simply covered.
Most of all, have fun when airbrushing!
Equipment needed
Vodka
Plenty of kitchen roll
How To Fix:
- Start by assessing the mistake!
2. Soak the kitchen roll in the vodka
3. Rub all over the colouring, don’t be scared when this spreads the colour, this is normal, as the alcohol starts to dissolve, it loosens the colour
4. Use dry kitchen roll, wipe away excess fluid and colouring, repeat this process to help break down the colour slowly and evenly until the colour has faded from the cake
5. Once the icing is dry, you are ready to start airbrushing again
6. Add additional decoration if you feel you need further cover
But I’m sure that you will agree that an airbrushed finish looks magical!
