Painting ISU Redbird Cookies – Step By Step

I don’t always remember to take photos of my work as I’m in the thick of decorating and painting my cookies.   However, for this particular design I’m pleased that I remembered.  Now, I’m better able to show you the design process from start to finish and I hope you will enjoy seeing this particular cookie come to life.   I’ll show you the end product now, incase you’re ealisy bored and need the visual to keep interested.  I know how that goes because I’m the exact same way

The Redbird is the school mascot for Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal.   Being from Illinois, and having a son that attended Illinois State for his freshman year, I’m somewhat familiar with this attractive yet determined looking bird.  The first step I almost always do before starting a cookie is turn to my computer.  I can’t tell you how often I turn to the web to find pictures and inspiration I can work from.  I seriously don’t know where I’d be without the internet for all my photo research and I’m constantly amazed at how much information and images can be found right at my own fingertips!

Many times I’ll do a cut out cookie but for this design I decided to do it on a basic square, royally iced cookie (and yes, by that I mean that they’re tasty enough to suit a king or queen ).  Looking back, it may have been easier to do this on a cut out cookie so I could have had more frame of reference for painting the design with the proper placement of eyes, beak and tilt of the head but after I got one cookie done to my satisfaction, the rest were just a matter of remembering and copying what I had originally done.  Just so you know, I do make mistakes and I always have a few extra cookies on hand for just that purpose.  I highly recommend that practice for you too, when you do your own.

Having my guide picture in front of me, my diluted food color paints in place, and my glasses off (I’m getting older you know) I set off  to work on my basic outline painting.  You’ll notice that I always use my trusty napkin so I can easily turn the cookie without having to touch it too much and to also occasionally dab off excess paint from the brush if needed.

Changing paint colors is easily done by washing the brush with water.  I always try to have a plan in mind before I start the actual painting process.  For this cookie, I’d decided that I would do some of the outline in black first and then fill in with the base color.  Even though there is such a thing as white food coloring, I’m never all that happy with the way it looks on a painted cookie.  For this reason, where there is white in the design, I try to plan ahead and leave those areas without any paint at all.  For me, this is the only sure way to get a true white color on a painted cookie.

Here you can really see the white teeth area being left unpainted and also the eye and eyebrow as the original picture shows.

Once the outline has been completed, the fun part of filling in the cookie can begin.  Just so you’ll know, I use a very fine liner brush 10/0 for the fine detail and then grab a somewhat thicker brush for the filling in.  I like a pin point tip on my brushes so I never let them sit in water for too long and always dry them off on a paper towel after washing.  For whatever reason, gel food coloring is hard on the hairs of the brushes, so take good care to keep your brushes in good condition.  It makes all the difference in the world to have decent, well cared for brushes.

Slowly but surely, this cookie is starting to come to life with additional details and the filling in of colors.

This is a good picture because I get to show how the napkin comes in handy and I can also tell you a very important point.  Make sure you’re paying attention for this:  When painting anything with a brush (i.e. a wall, a chair, a fence, a cookie ) you always need to pull your paint brush and never push it.  Pushing the brush will only splay the bristles and cause the paint to splatter out in areas you don’t want it to go. Plus, you’ll ruin your brush!  There, you’ve been warned and my work here is done!

The best part for me is always the final bit of detail that brings the cookie to life and defines the design. I guess you could say that it’s the exclamation point at the end of the sentence

Now humor me just a bit for some beauty shots.  Since I’m taking pictures, I might as well make the most of it, right?

TA DA! Wrapped and ready to go. I always feel such a great sense of pride and accomplishment when the order is complete.  Yay!!!

I sincerely hope that I’ve been able to help you better understand the fine art of cookie painting and that maybe I’ve inspired and encouraged you to try it for yourself.  I’d love to answer any questions you may have for me on the subject of cookie painting so please don’t hesitate to ask.   After all, you’ve stuck with me for this long, now is your turn.  I’d be thrilled to hear what you have to say

Thanks for visiting and come again soon!

Fondly yours,   Reneé

Tagged as: custom, delicious, food coloring, graduation, Hand Painted, Illinois, ISU, Redbird, royal icing, school mascot, tutorial