I have a cake I was asked to do for the end of this week! Their son is an amazing artist and is graduating. They want me to replicate one of his sculptures. Talk about intimidating! The sculpture has a 3d hand, decoupaged in book pages, coming out of an altered book. The design itself I am not having a problem with. Getting fondant to look like riped up book pages that have been decoupaged onto the form of this 3d hand is what I am not sure about! Any suggestions? I'm going to try an attatch a picture of his sculpture below.

How about using an edible image to cover the hand ?

I can think of two options:

--an edible image and the minor deformations will not be noticed (what the heck is printed on the original anyway?)

--tell the family that the original sculpture is copyright, and that you really should use either flesh coloured sugar or a glove colour like light beige. And instead of the letter, the hand could be holding a diploma...

The sculpture is fantastic. look at this cake on pinterest. it's covered with rice paper decoupage. that might be just what you need. http://pinterest.com/pin/117726977728765144/

Rice paper decoupage is awesome and really easy to do. I've done one with sheet music (pic on my website). If you have an airbrush, use vodka (or other booze of choice) in a very light mist - the more moisture on your fondant the more your rice paper will ripple, and I would not refrigerate after you add it because any condensation makes the paper ripple more. You also want to make sure you print on the flat side of the paper, not the dimpled side.

And come on with the copyright police. It's getting ridiculous that people are lecturing about copyright without even reading the original post.

OP, you have NOTHING to worry about.

OK guys time for some common sense. Let's see, where do we start?

The artist used a book..presumably he had a specific text in mind? I for one am sincerely curious to know which book he used when he created the original sculpture. It's a wonderful creative piece and it has a clear message.

Artists are taught to copyright their works. Sorry but that's Art School 101. I saw a poster in my local gallery's front window, and instantly recognised it as the new original work of a local artist. I got the message to him that there seemed to be something that he should check out. This artist sells lithographs of his original oil paintings under exclusive contract to another gallery, so he has to make that judgment call on behalf of his daily bread. Not me.

I thought of mentioning the "copyright" matter because it would excuse the cake maker from attempting to do all that fine text on the cake version. Sheer laziness on my part, I admit. A humorous suggestion to avoid some extremely hard work.

Besides, it occurred to me that the family of the artist might want to plant a gift for the graduate inside the cake's "message". Did that occur to anybody else?

BakinIrene--Being an artist myself, I totally get about your concern for the copyright. Some people could get a little crazy about that kind of stuff. Thanks for bringing it up But I think I'll be ok The book he used was "Junius Vol. II."

Thanks to everyone else for the input! I don't have a printer so I have to get my edible images from Walmart bakery. They use frosting sheets and they won't copy the book page I brought because of copyright. So I am tearing up an old book page and scanning it in. Hopefully the frosting sheet will work as well as the rice paper!

Crossing my fingers it all works!! Thank again everyone

Another way to do the hand is sculpting the hand using whatever sugar medium you like and stamp it using food color and an unmounted clear stamp. I used this on the rice paper on one of my cakes. The great thing about an unmounted stamp is that it can be molded around/over the fingers.
I had a brand new sponge type ink pad...the kind that does not come with ink in it. I then filled it with amerimist black food color and inked the stamp with it. I used a stamp that looked like an old letter but I know there are many clear unmounted stamps made to look like book pages. The reason I like the clear is because you can see your placement better.

The frosting sheet will work, but it won't have that weathered page look like your original. It also won't contour around the hand the way you need it. Are you planning on doing the hand out of cake or anything edible or are you doing it in sugarpaste? I may get lynched for this, but if the pages and hand are non-edible, I'd just use a regular printer on rice paper. If nobody is going to eat it and it's separated from the edible parts by fondant and sugarpaste, I don't think you will have any problems.

Thanks for the info.

Maybe you could use the text of the college's "requirements for graduation" if you are having edible sheets printed? These are posted online and I don't believe they are copyright.

You absolutely have to post a picture of your masterpiece! I don't even know where I'd start on a cake like that!

OMG...I'm still getting over you writing "a cake a I was asked to do FOR THE END OF THIS WEEK" !!!!

I finished the cake witht he newsprint on the hand It worked!

It's AMAZING!!! Congratulations, I bet they were over the moon that you were able to make that cake!!! You should be very proud.

It really is amazing. You are very talented