For those artists among us, it’s clear that talent isn’t the only thing needed to make a great work of art. Crafting skill is just as important as embracing and nurturing someone’s raw talent. It’s not fair to expect someone to be the next Leonardo da Vinci if they’ve never even learned how to hold a pencil properly.
This thinking doesn’t always go the other way, though. Someone who doesn’t have any natural talent might be able to learn the skill, but they’re not necessarily going to be any good at it. The truly great people are the ones who have both talent and learned technique. They are the ones who are probably looking forward to being the prized pupils in art school and then going on to sell their work for thousands of dollars at prestigious galleries.
Then, there are people who might have talent and skill in other areas, but it somehow doesn't across in their drawings. We’re willing to bet that some of these offenders don’t actually even realize just how bad their drawings are. Here are 15 people who should have tried harder on their pieces of art...or maybe just given up completely.
20 Half an hour does not an artist make
We are shocked at this interpretation of a human being. This really is a truly bad drawing, and there’s no way it took this person a whole half an hour to do. How is that possible? Did their pencil keep breaking? Did they get distracted? We’re guessing that that might have been an exaggeration, as there’s no way someone would produce that when given half an hour of drawing time. The features don’t even look human and the hair seems to be one big knot. Plus, we’re pretty sure most people have noses. There isn’t a nose in sight in this drawing.
19 Bieber has never looked so good
Bored Panda actually has a whole list of these drawings on their site, and we giggled our whole way through it. The Bored Panda article mentions how the artist behind these drawings is an Australian dude named Corey. He crafts these terrible portraits using a ballpoint pen, which might be why he’s earned the pseudonym Ballpoint Papi. Check out more of his drawings on Twitter and Instagram, under the handle @Tw1tterPicasso. There’s some shockingly bad renditions of celebs on his pages. Even though we think they’re awesome, not everybody does.
18 When your bad drawing is actually totally accurate
We love cats. Like any cornerstone of the internet, our website wouldn’t be complete without some mention of cats. Whether it’s a list about things cats can’t fit into or highlighting bad drawings of good cats, we’re here for it. This drawing looks terrible at a first glance.
The drawing is poorly framed and the cat looks like it just woke up from a NyQuil nightmare.
There’s no way this could be classified as a good drawing, right? Take a look at the picture it was trying to emulate. You have to admit that it’s similar, if not a bit simplistic. This bad drawing might just actually be an accurate one.
17 One word: #Muscles
We cannot get over this terrible portrait. We’re LOLing at what’s written on the shirt as well as what this kid did to the background of the picture. Why did he choose to include the lamp, but not the bed? It’s just so funny. We did a little digging and found out that the artist behind this is actually an internet sensation. Bored Panda says that he’s a student from Edinburg, Texas and started drawing portraits of people after putting a call out on Twitter. People got one look at his hilariously bad portrait skills and quickly clamored to get their own done. Maybe it’s the pure joy he draws with or maybe it’s the personal touches like #muscles. Whatever the reason, people love his work.
16 This drawing which represents everything we want to do too
Excuse the graphicness of this cartoon. We had to add it because of the sheer creative brilliance and terrible artistic skill. Not only do you have someone who clearly doesn’t like the Kardashians but you’ve got a person who’s motivated enough to put it into a picture.
They’ve done a mash-up of Marvel and popular media icons, making this potentially the most relevant comic out there today.
While we don’t condone violence of any kind, we admit that it gives us a smile to think about Hulk and the Kardashians shaking hands. We don’t want them destroyed! We just don’t want to hear about any more babies and cheating scandals.
15 This BuzzFeed artist who painstakingly recreated Finding Nemo
BuzzFeed is one of the biggest viral news sources online today, which is no surprise when you see the type of groundbreaking work that they’re putting out. Take, for example, this drawing, which was pulled from BuzzFeed’s article Every Pixar Movie Summarized In Terrible Microsoft Paint Drawings. We’re convinced that Matt Bellassai, the artist behind these drawings, knew how questionable they’d be before he started. We’re incredibly glad he created them and released them for the world to see. This is the type of news we need more of for sure. Check out the original article at your own risk, as the language is not exactly G-rated.
14 An unfortunate child and an unfortunate portrait
Every artist has their own calling card of style. You can always tell when you’re looking at a Jackson Pollock painting vs. when you’re looking at a Van Gogh painting.
An artist’s picture is a little bit of their soul, no matter how good or bad it is.
The same can be said for the kid who takes portrait requests over Twitter. You know that this was one of his before spending much time looking at it. The lined paper, the slightly dull pencil edge, and the disproportionate features all pointed towards Twitter portrait kid. It’s beautiful in its own way, but there’s no way that anyone would call him good.
13 At least Pizza Hut tried (which is better than most of these artists)
Pizza Hut will always be there for us. Whether we’re gorging ourselves after a bad break-up or celebrating the fact that we finally got a job, Pizza Hut is more constant in our lives than most of our friends. If you don’t know Pizza Hut, then you’re really missing out. You’ll love the greasy top and tough, chewy bottom. And flavor varieties? You know they’ve got them all. The one thing Pizza Hut doesn’t have is art skills, though. At least they owned up to that fact, which is more than we can say for some of these artists. That is one sad penguin.
12 At least he got the eyebrows right
Eyebrows can be a point of pride or a point of shame. Some people take great care their eyebrows, while some people don’t care.
No matter what side of the camp you’re on, you can’t deny the fact that when you see a nice set of eyebrows, you’ve got to check out the face they’re on.
You’re going to wish you hadn’t bothered when looking at this portrait. Brought to us by the same person who painstakingly crafted the #muscles drawing, the best part about this drawing are the eyebrows. Strong, bold and surprisingly similar to the actual picture, these eyebrows are the saving grace of the drawing…if only they’d spent as much time on the rest of the face.
11 This person who was doing great...until the flames
This drawing started off great. The face looks realistic and the shape of the giraffe has us convinced that this person is an accomplished artist. The artist has a creative streak as well, utilizing every corner of the page to tell an invigorating story about giraffes, humans and...fire? We’re actually not sure what that corner is supposed to be. It might have started off as flames, but it ended up looking like a whale splashing into a pool of kelp. Maybe that’s what the artist was going for. We won’t judge, but we will say that we’ve seen much better flames.
10 "Yaaaaay" is not what we'd say, looking at this
Animals are hard to draw. They have a different anatomy from humans, which means we’re less familiar with how to reiterate them on a page. We also don’t often have them sitting in front of us to copy.
Drawing hands is arguably easier than drawing certain animals since we’ve got at least one hand available for reference when we’re drawing.
Maybe the fact that this drawing could be called a success is why this artist decided to write “yaaaaaaaay” on their work. Drawing anything that comes close to resembling an anteater is a reason to celebrate. We’re assuming this is an anteater. It is an anteater, right?
9 This entire Instagram account you need to follow if you like bad drawings
The comments say it all. Not only are people loving this alternative look for Angelina Jolie but they also love the artist who drew it. We can’t say with confidence how long it took for this person to craft this portrait. We do know that there’s a whole Instagram account dedicated to portraits like this. Nearly every celebrity you could imagine is immortalized here with a terrible portrait. We absolutely love flipping through this account, and take great appreciation in the determination this artist has to get their work out there. It’s not the prettiest work, but it’s definitely some of the most entertaining.
8 The classic suspicious-potato chameleon we all love
You’ve probably seen this one before. If you haven’t you’re really missing out. This Twitter status caused laughter breakdowns from other stressed students and unstressed individuals alike.
We can’t help but think that this kid drew a squinting, lumpy, suspicious potato rather than an accurate chameleon.
While we give them points for trying to do it from memory, it’s not even a good attempt when looking at what a chameleon is supposed to look like. This kid might have tried, but just like their test score, it was a big fail. This is what you get for not paying attention in class, kids: suspicious potato lizard sketches.
7 This teacher, who tries to improve his students' drawings
Yet another doodle job as reported by BuzzFeed! This is one of the only decent sketches we included on the list, mostly because of how hilarious the story is. According to BuzzFeed, a science teacher in Thailand started adding on to his students’ doodles. He would see their little drawings on the test pages and would sketch in additional parts of the drawing. We chose this one because it’s just too cute. BuzzFeed also mentions that the students started to doodle with the intention of this teacher finishing the sketches. You can check out the article to see more, though, as we thoroughly recommend any of these collaborative doodles.
6 This art that should definitely be up in the Louvre
Naturally, this work of art would make our list. You might be surprised, but there’s nothing to question here. What you see is what you get with this drawing.
Like a clear plastic backpack, there’s no hiding anything in this stunning display of ballpoint genius.
You can see the ducks, you can see that they’re cross-eyed and you can see the little air puffs coming out of their behinds. The clouds are a nice touch, as they add a sense of space and background to the drawing. The title is clear, and they totally deserve to use all those exclamation marks. Well done, duck artist!
5 This person might have great ideas, but the execution isn't the greatest
We’re not entirely sure if this drawing was done by a child or by an adult. The writing certainly looks adult, though we’re guessing it could have been done by someone’s kindergarten teacher. There’s just no way that that was done by someone with established fine motor skills. People can be bad at drawing, but there’s no way that anyone is this bad at drawing. We’re going to guess that this was a child. And if it wasn’t, we owe an apology to the…"artist" in question. Can you really blame us for assuming it was a toddler when you look at this, though?
4 Ask and ye shall receive, even if it's not the greatest picture
Once again, this drawing actually isn’t too terrible. We love when people request hilarious drawings on their pizza boxes. Not only does it give the pizza artists a chance to stretch their other creative skills, but it also inevitably gets a laugh from the pizza recipient. This sketch of a T-Rex does look remarkably like a dinosaur.
We’re impressed that they did this only with a ballpoint pen and a few minutes of downtime.
We’re not impressed with the philosophical question beside it, though, nor are we pleased by that scribble method of coloring. Oh, well. Great art will never please everyone.
3 Maybe aliens really do exist
Have you spent your life searching for proof of alien life forms? Search no more. This totally accurate drawing is a real-life depiction of something that happened, and is definitely not made up at all. What, are you not convinced? To be fair, we don’t actually think that this kid sacrificed their baby sister to the aliens. While it’s a creative drawing, we’re pretty convinced that it doesn’t have any grounding in fact. We are impressed at the creativity of this person, though! Most people just wish their siblings didn’t exist; not using them as a sacrifice to the alien overlords!
2 Proof that you can live your life with (and through) drawing skills
Not on Tumblr? That’s fine! You don’t have to be to check out this hilarious page. This artist writes in their bio, “Bad Drawings of my daily life as it passes me by. And yours if you ask nicely.” We think that that’s the best way to describe whatever these sketches are. We’re not saying they’re bad; they’re absolutely relatable and very well crafted.
But they’re nowhere close to being realistic, and we can’t really tell just how much time was put into them.
We had to include them, though, as they’re just so relatable. Check them out if you’re looking for someone to poorly craft a moment of your life (or just commiserate with the ones that are there).
1 Finally: this drawing that we have no words for
We do have some words for this. After all, what is art without commentary? We think this drawing is a great summation of many of the things we’ve talked about today. Not only does it look like a little kid drew it, but the content of the picture is questionable at best. Somehow, the worse the drawing is the more creative people have tried to be. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a fine visual artist, but some people just aren’t cut out for it. We’re not saying all these people will never be able to achieve their dreams of hanging in the Louvre. We are saying that it might take more than a half an hour and a dull pencil to make that dream a reality.
References: boredpanda.com, boredpanda.com, twitter.com, buzzfeed.com, buzzfeed.com, tumblr.com