Artist drinks her coffee and paints with it too

MANILA, Philippines - Here's a wake-up call for budding artists who think they can't afford the high cost of painting materials. Dip your brush in coffee and use that to paint on paper. That's what 28-year-old Sunshine Plata did – and found a cheap medium that handles just like watercolors, except that her hues would be limited to shades and tints of brown. The resulting works, however, have the charm of sepia photographs. "Just because you don't have money doesn't mean you can't paint," Plata told Ian Cruz, whose report was aired on Thursday over 24 Oras, GMA Network's early evening newscast. Even as a child, Plata has always loved to art. When she got to high school she started painting – using traditional oil on canvas. It was hobby she indulged in even when she got to college. But she didn't go on to a fine arts course. Instead, she took up psychology at the University of Santo Tomas, because her grandfather had been urging her to go on and take up medicine. It was at this point that she discovered that she could do more than drink her coffee. In the kitchen one day, she thought: "Maybe I can use coffee to paint." For her first coffee painting, she did the exterior of her own alma mater, from which she eventually graduated and went on to teaching. But her painting took up more and more of her attention that last year she decided to quit teaching. It was also last year that two of her works caught the attention of Ripley's Believe It or Not, whose people were impressed enough to buy them for $2,500 (a little over P100,000). According to GMA's Cruz, some of Plata's paintings are on display, along with other art works, in Times Square in New York City. Actually, Plata, without realizing it, has discovered something that other artists – like Amita and Mira Chudasama of India – have already been using as a medium. In fact, the art world has taken to calling coffee painting as arfe – a portmanteau of art and coffee. It's a case of drinking your coffee and painting with it too. Plata's parents are naturally pleased at their her success. "I'm so amazed really that through such a simple thing as coffee something great happened," her father Reynaldo said. "She was very sensible enough that instead of asking (for money for other materials), she discovered another medium," her mother Sosie said. - Alexander T. Magno, GMANews.TV