Chocolate Painting

Easily turn (almost) any picture into a chocolate painting. Can be used as a cake decoration, or a

personalized gift.

Step 1: Finding the picture

You will need:
- Printer and paper
- white parchment paper
- baking spray or oil
- tape
- cutting board
- white chocolate
- dark chocolate
- clean thin paintbrushes
- toothpicks

Find the picture you'd like to paint, or take it yourself.
Pictures with high contrast work best.

With a picture editing software, make it a black and white picture.

Then turn up the contrast so much that it only has two colors: Black and white.

Flip it horizontally and print the result.

As an alternative, if you google pumpkin carving patterns, you may find some nice pictures that you can print directly.

Now tape the picture to the cutting board.

Comments

[merijnvw]

I made this one for my girlfriend. She was very happy with it so thanks. But I didn't just pour the dark chocolate on it, I first made a border with legos and then poured it in it, so that it is mor elike a chocolate bar. If somebody wants to do this aswell: Don't be worried about your lego, it doesn't melt that easy. And by the way, I wouldn't recommend to use the cheapest chocolate because the bar is getting more and more white eruptions where it should be brown, I don't know why this is but I made some chocolate things before with more expensive chocolate and then I didn't have this problem.

[RoaringSilence]

What a clever idea! I'm totally going to do this myself next time. So far I've only ever made big slobs of chocolate to put them on cake, hehe.

[nikkis]

Hi there. Sometimes we get "white spots" on chocolate if we don't temper it properly. Tempering requires you too heat the chocolate to a certain temperature, bring it back down, and then raise the temp again. It can take a few tries to get it right, but if you do it, then you should avoid the spots.

[merijnvw]

ok thanks for the tip i'll try that the next time

[finfan7]

Mine:

[RoaringSilence]

These are fantastic! Love the Fight Club one :)

[NatureGeek24]

My youngest is a chocolate fiend! We did this for her first communion- it was a hit. Thanks for the inspiration!

[RoaringSilence]

Oh that is beautiful!

[skeggja]

Thanks for this good idea!! I did a picture of my son :o)

[kjbrasda]

What am I doing wrong? My white chocolate beads up and refuses to lay nice, even when I skip the oil. This makes it completely impossible to do any sort of details at all. thanks!

[RoaringSilence]

Hmm that's a tough question.. I've never had that problem. Are you sure you're using actual white chocolate, and not some chocolate chip product? That may make the difference. Or maybe you need to add some shortening to the chocolate when you're melting it. I hope you'll find something that works, maybe you just need to try different kinds of white chocolate. Good luck!

[kjbrasda]

Ah, I did use the chips, I didn't know there was a difference. I'll try the block kind next time. thank you!

[TANZMEISTER]

The chips oftentimes have wax mixed in.

[butterbeans]

very nice effect. i will definitely use this technique one day. thanks for sharing!

[Chocolate Moose]

... In nomine patri, et phili *click* et spiructus sancti
*bang*
Awesome instructable

[GarrettMoylan]

in nomine patri, et FILI in spiritus sancti. The Romans never used "ph"...

[Gliucoza]

I once melted chocolate in glass bowl for 3 minutes in microwave. there was a lot of steam so I opened it . I took the bowl out put it on the table and the bowl broke of heat!!! I took both halfs put it in the sink so it would cool. the house smelled all day!! I'll be more carefull next time.

[Aznhick]

You never need more than about a minute to melt chocolate. The outside may not look melted but overall the temperature of the chocolate is enough to melt it. Just put in on low in 20¬30 second bursts until you can stir the chocolate into a liquid. You can keep the chocolate melted by using a hair drier on low setting and then stirring.

[RoaringSilence]

Ahh that's horrible. Hope you saw all the tips below on how to prevent that next time. Good luck!

[Pumuckl]

this could potentially be the most tasty painting project ever! I think I'm going to try to use it to make personalized cookies... maybe melt a little extra chocolate to adhere the hardened paintings to a cookie? This is awesome.

[beans8604]

 this was awesome, fun, and quick to do. Great idea thank you so much!

[atlas_junkie]

This is a fantastic idea!  I did something similar, years ago, but I never thought to use a personal photo and just up the contrast like that.  I'm definitely going to do this.  Ha!  Everyone will marvel at my talent... suckers!  Thanks for the Instructable.

[g0nn el tren]

whats the picture format?

[RoaringSilence]

It doesn't matter, really. Photographs will usually come in jpg format, but pictures with only two colors are usually saved as gifs. Blurry lines are really not that important though, because I doubt you can be exact with a chocolate covered brush :)

[airicknuin]

 can you use wax paper instead?

[RoaringSilence]

Absolutely. In fact, you may not even need the oil/cooking spray when you use wax paper, it would probably come off easily enough without it.

[airicknuin]

thanks, i'll make sure i'll post a picture of my finished product within the next few days.

[Deadskull57]

Woot! Boondock Saints!

[JohnJY]

Great idea! Never would of thought of it, this is really art I can sink my teeth into.(Pun intended!)

[LisaYum]

This is such a great idea! No artistic hand needed

[soapwytch]

What an interesting idea! :)

[toyage]

it is spelled put but understand =)good job

[RoaringSilence]

I actually meant to say "pour". But thanks. lol

[TeachNdahood]

Gorgeous, and simple to do thank you !

[BoondockSaint]

Good choice of subject. :]

[thartaros]

could you make kind of grayer tones if you make a separate batch of white chocolate mixed with dark chocolate or food coloring or something?

[RoaringSilence]

Absolutely. You could use all the colors of the rainbow if you wanted (they have so called candy melts for that.) I would still recommend editing the picture beforehand and printing it in only three colors (or however many you want).

[Ushino ^^]

FANTASTIC !!!

[Comanchee]

Wow that sounds awesome! Bingo sudden idea for aniversary :-)

[Ladilola]

I love this instructible! I have a tip for meling chocolate with not chance to "break" it by overheating: You will need a small metal bowl or pot and a larger bowl or pot that this can fit into. Pour boiling water in the larger container, and put the smaller metal bowl with chocolate pieces into that, so that the smaller bowl touches the water. Then just wait until the chocolate melts, maybe 10 minutes or more, depending on the amount of chocolate. If the chocolate starts to reset, replace the water with more boiling water. This is the simplest and safest way to melt chocolate!