Yes, I'm still here. I haven't had anything to share with you since I wrote last Wednesday with my King Kong blog as I have only assisted with a chocolate & pralines class on the Wed & Thurs evenings. Over the past 3 days I have been doing the chocolate showpieces class. As today was the final day of showpieces, I now have pics to share with you.
I thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate flowers class when I did it & was so looking forward to doing the showpieces class. When I saw the 2 choices of piece we could make, however, I felt slightly overwhelmed. Showpieces is a lot more technical & really, you need to have a bit of creative flair in order to conceptualise, design & bring to fruition the piece visualised. Fortunately, this was more an exercise in copying Paul Kennedy's showpiece creation.
When designing a chocolate showpiece you begin with a theme & create a focal point for the piece with that theme in mind. A frame & support pieces are then incorporated into the structure. In my piece the frame is a teardrop shape & this gives a prop to display decorative components on. Support pieces are present to give strength & stability, which is achieved through increasing the number of contact points between adjoining pieces. Chocolate sculptors often use flowing shapes to give movement to the piece & draw the viewers eye to other areas of the sculpture they wish to showcase. Small decorative components are often added as features & also to hide joins in support structures. Pieces that suggest movement & flow, that add depth & incorporate texture provide added interest. The sculpture generally contains pieces of interest on all four sides.
We had the choice of doing a tropical- or forest-themed showpiece. As you can see, I chose the tropical theme. The base consists of a solid cube & sphere. Out of the base rises a teardrop shaped frame. This was created by constructing a frame from cardboard strips & cast with tempered chocolate. A ring sits over the point of the teardrop & acts as a platform to support two flowing freestyle shapes.
For decorative components we cast the head of an African woman, a cocoa bean & cocoa bean leaves. We used chocolate moulds to construct a cocoa bean & two coconut halves. The coconut was given texture by processing chocolate callets to a paste, applying this to the exterior of the half spheres & rubbing it with steel wool to give it a stringy appearance resembling the husk of a coconut. We constructed flowers, a banana leaf, twigs & tendrils & hair for our African beauty.
I must acknowledge Paul Kennedy's help in putting my piece together. After breaking my flower & with time ticking away fast & a lineup of people trying to get things spray painted, I got a bit blasé. I knew this showpiece wasn't going to survive a trip in the car. Breakages were inevitable as it is a tall piece with a small base that simply isn't adequate in providing stability to the piece. And all the wispy components such as the hair, twigs & vines & the flowers were extremely fragile. Other people were really wanting to get theirs done so they could take the showpiece back home with them. And in classes you really need to be pushy in order to get a turn. Paul heard me offering my leaf to a girl who'd broken hers & he stepped in & started assembling mine. I simply gave a squirt of freezer spray when required! So in actual fact, this would be Paul's piece. But, this class was more about acquiring the processes involved in producing a showpiece. This is not a skill that can be picked up in a three day class. As my previous TAFE teacher Dean Gibson, who is extremely talented in all aspects of the showpiece production process, will attest, this is a skill that needs constant practice. But then, that concept applies to most things doesn't it?
And yes, my showpiece arrived back to the unit in pieces. Numerous pieces!The other choice of showpiece, the forest theme, involved the production of two styles of mushroom, bark, a flower, leaves & various other structure pieces. Take a look.
Remember, if you click on a picture you will get the full size version which may help you in checking out the smaller details.
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