Butterfly & Watercolour effect.

An edible, sequinned, watercolour Butterfly topper. Had a little technique breakthrough working on this and I'm still revelling in the possibilities...a tip of the iceberg thing. Although the body of this butterfly is quite sturdy, I was trying to keep the wings light and delicate. I had in mind that it would be lovely to build up the colouring with washes of colour instead of painting with gel or paste. Because the wings were made from very thin leaves of sugar paste, using washes of colour was going to be problematic. Sugar paste doesn't like to get wet. It melts and collapses when wet. Culinary alcohol is used by some to tint sugar flowers with delicate washes because it has a superfast drying time. So I thought I'd try it on the wings. What I wasn't expecting was a watercolour like edging effect. As the alcohol spreads it carries pigment with it that condenses at the edges, leaving a super delicate line, when seconds later the alcohol evaporates. Especially with darker tones. So suddenly there was much more complexity and delicacy in the colour surface. And I can't wait to try again.