Can you paint on BC, and if you can, how do you go about doing it ? 
What do I need ?
Anyone Please !!!!!!!! 
Please someone.
I need it for tomorrow, and if you can't paint on it, I will need to see if they like MMF, I know I can paint on it.
I have painted sparkle luster dust on BC but it's really tricky.... you have to use vodka or everclear and only a tiny amount and then add the dust and use a sparing amount or it will make your BC funky.... I definitely would not paint an entire cake - would be much easier to frost in a colored icing. I did a bead border and painted it with sparkle... and it didn't show up like it would on fondant. What do you have in mind?
I know that you can paint luster dust on BC- I just tried it this past weekend b/c there was another thread that asked if it was possible. Someone said it was...so I HAD to try it. I mixed Luster Dust with vodka and very gently painted it on with a soft bristled paint brush. Worked like a charm, so if you can find LD in the colors you need, that is a sure way to go!
I have not tried painting on icing coloring, so I will leave that for someone else to answer, but I bet you can.
It is supposed to be for a fish.
Just checked and they don't care for MMF, I told her I might have to use it anyway, and they could scrape it off.
She was o.k. with that, so that is probably whay I will have to do, unless someone else tells me it can be done.
Thanks to the ones above for the help, can't remember who replied, but thanks again.
you can mix luster dusts and alcohol in the airbrush by first adding alcohol to the airbrush then a little powder, back flush by pulling back the lever gently and putting your finger over the needle hole. this will mix it up. then spray. it's important to continue to mix it up every now and then so it will spray out. (practice with plain water first)
you can apply the powder dry to a soft big head brush and blow it on. works best when the icing is soft.
you can hand paint buy mixing powder with alcohol. use a brush and paint it on. this only really works if you can work with the cake cold such as in the walk-in other wise i would use fondant and royal icing instead of doing the cake buttercream then you can paint at room temp.
you can paint with food coloring by mixing food coloring with either white food coloring or a non-toxic tempera from crayola. this also works best on cold buttercream cakes or buttercream made of shortening. but works best with fondant.
if you experiment with these techniques you find they have more uses.
hope this helps
well i have an advantage, i have the bat cave, my utility belt and a really cool delivery vehicle that has flames shooting out the back.
Quite an impressive background hawaii-five-o Your cakes are beyond amazing!! 
thank you very much for saying so! 
i learned pastry art from culinary school and cakes from takes the cake in pasadena, rosebud cakes in beverly hills, great cakes in redmond, wa (now closed ) and cake divas of los angeles. i also have an fine art back round.
Okay Hawaii-five-0...
I am gonna suck it up and try your technique tonight...
Painting luster dust mixed with alcohol on BC instead of my typical fondant. However, I have a question...
Should the BC be firm/cold for the best results with this method? I typically allow my BC to crust and then smooth with a Viva paper towel.
Also, I am doing a three cake stacked hexagon shaped cake...doyou stack it first and then paint or vice-versa?
Just posting because I happened upon a photo in the galleries today that had painting on bc. Hopefully the creator of this cake doesn't mind me linking the photo here. In the comments under the photo, she explained what was used to do the painting. HTH!
painting on bc
I am a total computer tard, so forgive me if that doesn't work!
I have a beer can cake in my photos that I painted entirely and it is buttercream. I used a crusting buttercream, then mixed the silver dust with lemon extract. For the black I used Americolor black with the lemon extract. I mixed it quite thin and it covered very well. I was very surprised. And Hawaii-five-o, love your cakes!! You should do a book.
msauer, okay, if your talking about running it through the airbrush then i prefer to airbrush on room temp buttercream. cold buttercream does not absorb the color as well or as fast and it might bead up. if your using a shortening based icing then this might not apply? if your talking about hand painting with a paint brush then the cake should be very cold and i prefer to work on it in the walk-in.
i'm not familiar with the buttercream crusting up. i haven't really used that kind of buttercream since i first was learning. using a paper towel to smooth it out is not something i know about either. i use an all butter buttercream and i smooth it out with a tool as i ice the cake.
as far as stacking it first, it sort of depends on what your doing and how much control you have with the airbrush. a lot of times i ice and stack at the same time so the buttercream is at room temp for me to airbrush on.
i hope this helps and i would practice back flushing the airbrush with water first. don't over do the amount of lust dust or it might clog it up. if that happens just flush with hot water.
i never put any of them on this board. i do have a website at www.cakelava.com
Hawaii-five-0 and peterlori1...
Not sure if you will see this, but I DID IT!!! Thank you both for your help. I learned a lot through this process and could have done more layers of luster dust, but I'm okay with how it turned out. It's the hexagon cake I just posted in my photos today if you wanna peak!!!
Just posting because I happened upon a photo in the galleries today that had painting on bc. Hopefully the creator of this cake doesn't mind me linking the photo here. In the comments under the photo, she explained what was used to do the painting. HTH!
painting on bc
I am a total computer tard, so forgive me if that doesn't work!
That she is a he btw, lol.
Yes, it can be done, but it is not the best medium. You have to use really light strokes and make sure that no one spot is to moist or you start to tear through the buttercream. Larger brush strokes are better. The more detailed you work, the more chance of problems. I hope that helps.
I too am wondering about this. I am having issues, I have to do a 9" round white cake, with 1" stripes (buttercream only cake) of navy blue...tonight! I was going to buy tip 1D, but my store didnt have it. I bought one of the petal tips, but it is just too small.
I wanted to know if I could paint these stripes on the buttercream too...would it would look weird or maybe "melt" in the fridge? (perishable filling)
As much of a proponent of painting on buttercream that I am, I think navy on white has a great potential to bleed if you are hand painting.
Could you use one of the basketweave tips (upside down). That's how I do stripes sometimes... 2B is a nice sized one...
Just a thought...
-Michelle
Wow, glad I asked before attempting it! Bleeding would NOT be good. My local cake store didnt have any of the bigger basketweave tips, only the small ones. I was really going for tip #1D, but they didnt carry it. I ended up buying tip # 105, which is a petal tip, but with a straight opening (instead of a pear shaped opening). I figure worse case scenerio I can pipe 2 or 3 lines at a time to make a wider stripe.
I had thought about buying a spray can of color, but again, wasnt sure if it is possible to do stripes without splattering the rest of the cake. LOL.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%