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Hi there!

I'm basically drawing crappy portraits of people's pets in return for donations and have so far raised over $1000 in a few weeks for my local Homelessness Charity.

It's all happened so organically without much thought or effort. A little over two weeks ago, I was making some "thank you" cards with my six-year-old. Whilst he was making his card, I just doodled a couple of pictures of our dog—they were really rubbish, I’m not an artist and have never really drawn in my life.

More info: Facebook | justgiving.com

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Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

These are my pictures and we’re raising some great money for an excellent cause - over £1500 in two weeks! If you haven’t already, please give my Facebook page a like and share. I’m posting around six new pictures every day: https://www.facebook.com/portraitsbyhercule/

K L S Dennis
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Dear Hercule, I am a professional artist. I paint portraits and caricatures of people with and without their animals and animals with and without their people. Please believe me, I know what I am talking about when I say you have a very rare gift. Your instinctive, honest, sublimely naive line is something old fakers like me dream about. No matter how successful you become - and you will be very successful - I implore you, remain true to yourself or you will lose that priceless gift and become ordinary and forgettable. I also implore you to seek shrewd guidance and support or your innocence will be abused by 'clients' who will give a fiver to charity then sell your signed work for hundreds if not more. Hercule, you are already famous and famous people will already know you. I am being deadly serious when I suggest you should make yourself available for contact by someone like Banksy, for example, whose integrity is beyond doubt: you would not find a better source of shrewd advice.

Frazer Streames
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

These drawings are absolutely fantastic, he has genuine talent, please please don’t ever stop

Amiga1000
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've seen real artists doing worse than this. You got some talent!

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As a joke, I uploaded the two pictures to my Facebook page with a jokey comment about Pet Portraits being for sale for just £299. No VAT. A friend commented asking me to draw her dog, then another, then another, and by the end of the day, I had probably drawn about five portraits and we'd all had a giggle in the process.

Then, after a couple of shares, I started getting requests from people I didn't know asking for portraits. That’s when I set up the Facebook page Pet Portraits By Hercule and the JustGiving page which is raising money for my local homelessness charity, Turning Tides. I was having fun drawing the pictures, people seemed to enjoy laughing at them, and if we could make a bit of money for a brilliant cause in the process—great!

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My initial dream was to try to raise £299 (around $388), which was the price I had initially quoted as the price for my portraits. Less than two weeks later, and we have raised just shy of £1000 (around $1299), the page has nearly 700 likes, and I've been invited to display at a gallery! I currently have 70 or so requests for portraits, but the more the merrier!

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All the portraits are free! All I’m asking for is a donation to the charity and that can be whatever people can afford to give—I’ve had donations from £2-£50!

The only thing I ask is that unless people are happy to donate without expecting a portrait, they hold off until I have done their pic. Otherwise I’ll end up in a situation where people may donate without actually getting a picture (I’m trying to get them all done, but that’s looking less and less likely the more requests I get!)

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