Stunning pictures made out of jelly beans are good enough to eat

Stunning pictures made out of jelly beans are good enough to eat:

These incredible – and edible – paintings are made entirely from jelly beans. The tasty recreations of famous paintings, including Leonardo da Vinci's iconic Mona Lisa, take over 50 hours to create.

Mona-pleaser: Homage to Da Vinci (Picture: Barcroft)

Each one was meticulously pieced together by artist Kristen Cumings using up to 12,000 of the multicoloured sweets.



But for the sweet-toothed 39-year-old, art is not a painful process of self-discovery. It’s a painful process of self-control.



‘The biggest challenge, especially as I have a sweet tooth, is resisting the temptation to not eat half of them as I go,’ admits Ms Cumings.
A portrait of Harry Potter (Picture: Barcroft)

‘Before I start, I always go down to the shops and buy a huge box of Jelly Belly’s 50 assorted colours.’



The artist from Martinez, California, adds: ‘Then I separate them into different colours from which I pick the colours.



The Starry Night by van Gogh (Picture: Barcroft)

'When I first started it took me about 200 hours per piece. But now I've honed my skills and can get one done in half the time.



'Usually I spread this out over a month as it can be very labour intensive and repetitive, so you need to have sustained breaks to help recover.'