60 ft Mona Lisa

Standing at a majestic 60-feet tall, this new feature on the US landscape is certainly a traffic stopper.

Motorists have been left open-mouthed at the sight of this landscape image of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.

Motorist Janet Hunter pulled her car over to take a photograph of the vision about four miles east of Newport, Virginia. "It's unbelievable,It's fantastic." she said.

The amazing reproduction of the Mona Lisa has been created by local artist Samuel Clemens, who says he has been waiting to create a piece of landscape art since he was a child and saw a picture of a farmer who had transformed a field into art using fertiliser to darken the green of the grass.

"I was always going to do the Mona Lisa," said Clemens (48) who describes himself as an artist who pays the bills working construction. "I did it because the Mona Lisa is the most recognised thing."

The masterpiece was recreated by making a stencil on a tarpaulin, then dusting the hillside with black water-based pigment. It took him 14 hours just to lay out the tarpaulin and another nine to spray the 40-by-60-foot painting.

"Whenever someone makes the effort, you have to stop and appreciate it," said Becky Stillwell of Albany, who brought her guests from Boston to view the work. "Otherwise, people stop doing interesting things."

Clemens bought the dairy farm where the Mona Lisa now stands eight years ago with a view to creating the masterpiece on the 60-degree slope behind it.

"I was worried about the detail because the hill isn't smooth," he said. "It isn't like a piece of paper. As it was, I lost a little smile at the corner of her mouth and one of her eyes is in an undulation."

The Mona Lisa will disappear as the grass grows, but Clemens already has plans for 2007, although he is remaining tight-lipped over he details.