BBC: 'Rubbish' pet portraits raise £5k for homeless

 

IMAGE COPYRIGHTHERCULE VAN WOLFWINKLE

image captionFake customer review: "One day, hopefully very soon, Dominic Littlewood is going to be chasing you down the street."

A father from West Sussex has raised nearly £5,000 for a homeless charity by drawing "rubbish" pictures of pets.

It all started when Phil - who operates under the spoof alias "acclaimed artist Hercule Van Wolfwinkle" - doodled his pet dog while colouring with his son.

He put it on Facebook and offered commissions at a joke price of £299, but genuine requests flooded his inbox.

"I think people just found them funny, at a time when there's not loads to smile about," he said.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTHERCULE VAN WOLFWINKLE

image captionReview: "Tell ya what mate, why don’t you get back to me when you’ve drawn a picture of my actual dog"

IMAGE COPYRIGHTHERCULE VAN WOLFWINKLE

image captionReview: "It’s going to take a while to process these emotions. I feel like I want to laugh and cry and scream and cry and scream and cry and cry and cry all at once"

He did the illustrations for free and shared them on social media with funny fake-reviews and got thousands of likes.

People were keen to pay him something, but he said: "I couldn't take their money - the pictures are rubbish. So I set up a Just Giving page and suggested people donate instead."

Read on...