Making fun of a bad picture he drew of his dog, Phil Heckels posted it on Facebook. Little did he know that post would turn into an internet sensation, and people around the world would be begging for him to draw a bad picture of their pet.
Heckels is the artist behind the Pet Portraits By Hercule project, where he draws "rubbish" portrait of people's pets in exchange for a donation to charity. He receives tens of thousands of requests in his inbox, but it all started with one particularly bad drawing.
In 2020, Heckels was trying to get his 6-year-old son to make thank-you cards, when he decided to draw a picture of his dog. The photo came out particularly bad, so he pulled up a picture of his dog, and really tried. It was only marginally better.
Thinking it was funny, Heckels decided to post it on Facebook.
"It was just rubbish. Honestly, it was rubbish," Heckels joked.
At first, a few of his friends thought it was hilarious and asked him to draw their pet. Then, it just took off. His Facebook, created under the alias Hercule Van Wolfwinkle, got bigger and bigger. Strangers were asking for a drawing of their pets, so Heckels made a dedicated social media account, thinking it was just his 15 minutes of fame.
Six years later, he's still drawing notoriously bad dog portraits. But now, it's his full time job.
After two decades in commercial property and about two years of drawing bad dog portraits, Heckels quit his job and started drawing portraits nearly every day instead. Heckels doesn't make a living off the drawings themselves. He requests that people donate to charities Turning Tides Ending Local Homelessness and StreetVet instead. In total, they've raised more than half a million dollars.
Heckels is making his money through merchandise and other projects, but he refuses to take money for his artwork. While people have offered thousands of dollars (or pounds, since he lives in the United Kingdom), he never wanted to charge people for a bad drawing.
"At first, it was simply because there was no way I was going to charge anybody for the portraits. In my mind, they were rubbish," said Heckels. "People tell me off for saying that now because they describe them as fun and quirky, and I understand that. But in the context of the original joke, where they were supposed to be proper pet portraits, I still think they’re rubbish."
By now, Heckels estimates he's drawn about 2,500 portraits, and they've actually gotten better, but he has some rules to "keep him honest." Heckels never starts over, he draws with a pen and he only sees the photo right before he's going to draw it. About 10 minutes later, a masterpiece is created.
"I do get criticism sometimes that the portraits are getting too good. But people have been saying that since about my 12th portrait. You never have to wait too long for a real stinker to appear, though," said Heckels.
While Heckels is trying to run this project for as long as he can for the charities, it's also for the laughs.
"If I make one person smile, hopefully they share it with someone else. That’s why we’re still going," said Heckels.
If you want your own pet portrait, Heckels said he looks for requests through his social media. Those requests are chosen at random, since he's gotten about 100,000 offers over the years. If you're one of the lucky few, he asks you to donate to one of the two charities.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: He made fun of his art. Now the world wants a ‘rubbish’ pet portrait.
