Vancouver's Mei Yu's online art videos continue to gain in popularity. She now has over 1.4 million subscribers to her YouTube channel that's full of art challenges, ranging from anime and manga, to trying out new materials that are a little out of the ordinary — including coffee.

The renowned artist decided to try drawing with instant coffee just to see what it would look like.

"I was thinking about painting with coffee as something that's really unique and different," said Yu. "It's coffee, it's delicious ... and I thought it would be fun to show my viewers all kinds of art you can do with the things around you."

This dragon was painted entirely with coffee residue. (CBC)

"I'm always trying to create different types of art challenges and interesting content."

Yu uses her regular brushes on watercolour paper that she finds at local arts stores. The paintings resist fading after they're finished.

Her fans love it.

She says the response has been so positive that she decided to make a T-shirt out of her first coffee design and is now selling them.

Mei Yu posts the videos on her channel Fun2Draw. She started the channel to inspire other people to draw and paint after she grew up without access to any formal instruction.

With files from CBC's Our Vancouver

