Mushroom art

Most people might prefer to not remove mushroom skin, as they are edible. However, if you would like to garnish a charming looking mushroom with a pure white surface, you can use the following way to peel it.

1. Peel mushroom skin off

Firstly, use the pointed tip of a paring knife to nip the mushroom skin, with your thumb pressing on the skin at the same time to hold it. After that, follow the curve of the mushroom to pull it off.

Sometimes, you might nip too deeply into the mushroom cap and you will remove too much. Therefore, try to nip a little bit less skin to keep as much mushroom as we can.

Continue the process until the entire skin has been peeled clean.

Prepare a small bowl with lemon juice and water and dip into lemon water quickly. It will help the mushroom to stay pale for hours. As the acidity will slow down the oxidative reaction and reduce the mushroom turning brown quickly.

2. Carving a flower on a mushroom

Before we start carving a flower on a mushroom, we should imagine and design what the location and size could be. If it is necessary, you can draw it on a piece of paper to structure it. See picture-5, it’s a design for the size of the flower that we are going carve on a mushroom. See tips with a suggestion if you are not confident to start carving.

Use the pointed tip of a paring knife to press a triangle into the mushroom. If you would like to have a shallow pattern on the mushroom, you should press gently. Another way around, press a little bit harder but don’t use too much pressure on it, if you do you will have a deep groove.

Continue to press the pointed tips to create a nice circle around the mushroom top.

At the end of the circle, you might lack space to make two pointed tips, gently press the triangles on that narrow area. See if it is good to fit two or one. After that, carve the correct shapes there.

Here we are, a gorgeous mushroom flower has been done.

The mushroom art will increase the joy on the table. Please try your own.

3. A simple pattern with four hearts on a mushroom

3-1 Making a cross

In this section, I am going to show you a simple pattern on a mushroom with a cross and four heart shapes. Check picture-18 to see the final result. Firstly, use the back blade of a paring knife to make a line in the centre on the mushroom.

After that, make another 90 degrees line across the mushroom.

3-2 Making four hearts

Use the sharp end spine of a paring knife to carve a heart shape gently.

Once the heart shape has a nice design on the mushroom, press the shape and give it more depth.

Using the same method create the second heart and let the endpoint of the heart shape face the centre of the cross.

Also, use the same process to create a third heart.

Create the fourth heart shape. Make sure to keep the same space with each other.

That’s what you should have done by now.

3-3 Creating side patterns

Find any small utensil with a good size to carve on the mushroom. For instance, I am going to use the end of the spoon with a round square shape.

For making the square shape on, you can press and rotate the end bit of the spoon in left and right.

As the angle that I pressed on the mushroom is a little bit tilted to the left, I am going to create another shape to tilt to the right. As such, it will look like a pair of patterns.

Try to bring out your artistic talent to create a more interesting pattern on the mushroom art.

4. A quick mushroom art with stamping circles

4-1 Making double-crosses

In this section, I will integrate the first two sections that you have learned to create a quick and easy way to do mushroom art. Firstly, we will make four crosses on a mushroom, then stamp circles on it. Check picture-32 to see the result.

Make a cross to find the centre point, then keep making to diagonal cross lines to separate the spaces equally in eight areas.

Because of the sharp end spine of a paring knife is thinner than the back blade. You are able to make it thinner at the end of the mushroom cap by using the sharp end spine.

This is what you should have done so far.

4-2 Making circle patterns

For making a mushroom decoration, you are able to use any tools to create simple patterns on it. Here is my idea, use drinking straws and chopsticks.

Stamp the big drinking straw on one area of the eight to create a circle on the mushroom. Try to twist it down instead of pressing down, it will help the shape to look nice.

Swap to another small drinking straw to create another circle on the one above.

Above these two circles, I designed a shallow groove by using a chopstick point.

You can try different combinations with drinking straws and chopsticks to make it look interesting visually.

Here is an example of the combination to use the pointed tips of a paring knife, drinking straws and chopstick on a mushroom art.