Aroma Festival

Although its doubtful that Leonardo Da Vinci consumed 3,604 cups of coffee while painting the Mona Lisa; it took a team of eight people about three hours to recreate it with that many cups at the The Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia in 2009. The different shades were created by adding milk in varying amounts with some receiving none, little or lots of milk to each cup of black coffee.

The “mural” was seen by 130,000 people who attended the one-day coffee-lovers event. “We wanted to create an element of surprise and a sense of fun in the way we engaged with the public,” said Elaine Kelly – one of the event organizers.

“Once we had the idea of creating an image out of coffee cups we searched for something iconic to reproduce – and opted for the most iconic painting in history,” stated Kelly. “The Mona Lisa has been reproduced so many times in so many different mediums but, as far as we know, never out of coffee. The result was fantastic.”

Have you ever created something out of materials that wouldn't normally be used for that item? Please share your experience with a comment here.