A dad’s hilariously bad portraits have gone viral and now he’s flooded with paid art commissions worldwide.
Jamie Matthias’s wacky side-hustle started by accident after he painted a “terrible” portrait of his wife Kate as a wedding gift.
Kate thought the artwork was so funny she posted a picture of it on social media and within days it racked up thousands of views and comments.
Jamie, 41, has since been inundated with requests from people desperate for him to create funny versions of their own photographs.
The dad-of-three, from Alsager, Staffs., now juggles his art business which his full-time accounting job.
He said: “I actually don’t mean to paint badly and I’m doing my best to recreate the photos I get sent but it’s just the way they turn out.
“I try and create an alternate universe where proportions have no meaning. I’ve painted for years but I had no idea they were so bad until people started telling me.
“We’ve always painted, it’s like a family activity.
“At half-term we’d get the mats and canvasses out and paint something with the kids.
“Kate was making a comment about how bad mine were and I said I would paint one for our wedding day, as a joke.
“It was brought out by the kids during my wedding speech and everyone loved it, it was hysterical.
“I find painting really relaxing so I did some for the friends and family over Christmas.
“The reactions were priceless. I thought I’d stick one out there and see if anyone wanted one.
“I made a joke, because of the poor quality of my art, that I might start trying to sell it to make money.”
Jamie said he was stunned by the reaction online to his artwork.
He added: “As a bit of a joke set up a Facebook and Instagram account called Terrible Art by Jamie Lee, we
sent out the picture, the reaction and a bit of a blurb and it just kind of blew up.
“We’ve got orders all over England, Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland, people all over the country
seem to be really enjoying it.
“We’re at 71 orders now, and we put it up on January 2.
“We joke Kate is head of financial distribution and her bridesmaid Kate is head of marketing.
“It seems to be getting a lot of noise on social media, we’ve got just over of 1,800 followers.
“Some of the pictures they ask me to paint are amazing, they clearly get the humour.
“It’s acrylic on canvas and it’s priced from £25 plus postage, it’s very cheap.”
Jamie spends around two hours every evening painting his commissioned work on 10 x 12 inch canvases.
He said: “I do it at the dining room table, I haven’t got a space, I don’t have a studio.
“For me it’s just about the reactions and people have been loving it.
“We’ve said to people there’s a three to five week waiting list but they all understand.
“I’ll keep forgetting to paint someone’s nose and have to keep mixing paint and add it later. It adds to the comedy value.
“I’ve been drawing this way since I was a child, if anything some of the paintings have got a lot worse.
“This is my standard, there’s no risk of it getting better. I am absolutely not an art teacher.
“We just do it as a family, I actually didn’t like art at school.
“I think everyone has seemed to appreciate them in some way. They are terrible but Kate just said it’s so much fun, she appreciates it.”
His wife Kate, 40, added: “It’s just the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen. We’ve had so much fun laughing at his inability to paint.”
