NTU student's ugly portraits are a hit online -- and they're only $4 a pop

Ugly portraits are all the rage right now and no one is more surprised at how popular they are than amateur artist Laura Jiang.

The 20-year-old communications student at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) shared with Stomp that she started selling ugly drawings on Shopee for "pure laughs and entertainment".

Although Laura has never studied art formally, she shared with Stomp that she used to doodle a lot as a child and picked it up again to start this small business.

"I was inspired by this TikTok where an Indonesian Shopee seller was doing ugly drawings also," she said.

"When I saw there wasn't a similar listing on Shopee Singapore, I decided to do it."

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by @nyanpoo on shopee (@uglycrappydrawings)

To date, Laura has sold 275 portraits.

When asked if she expected her drawings to blow up as they did, she exclaimed, "Definitely not!"

"I remember being pleasantly surprised that I even received three orders before the viral TikTok blew up my store.

"You can imagine how shook I was when tens of orders started streaming in!"

Despite the point of her drawings being caricatures, followers have complimented Laura for being "on point" and capturing minor details.

Laura started selling ugly drawings in July from $2.50.

However, she recently revised her rates starting from $4 to respect her own art and the rest of the art industry.

She also received feedback from several buyers telling her she was charging too little and undervaluing her work.

For now, Laura is focusing on growing her small business.

"I may even take up drawing classes so that my ugly drawings look better (I know this is a very confusing statement)," she said.

"I'm also thinking of creating a TikTok where I may share my creative processes so do keep a lookout on my Instagram page for that!"