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Dad Photoshops Kids Drawings on “ThingsIHaveDrawn” Instagram

I'm Deeply in Love With This Dad's Wonderfully Weird Re-Creations of His Kids' Drawings

Image Source: Instagram user thingsihavedrawn

Last weekend, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across an account that has quickly become my favourite: Things I Have Drawn. The concept is genius. For the past five years, a dad named Tom has been photoshopping animals to look exactly like his childrens' drawings, and the result is so wonderfully weird that I've become obsessed. Get ready to giggle at the one-eyed goldfish with two pointy fangs; smirk at the scorpion that looks far too pleased with itself; and laugh out loud at the sausage-looking interpretation of the family's late cat. This kooky account is so beautifully pure, and you need it in your life immediately.

I touched base with Tom to find out why he started photoshopping his kids' (Dom, 11 and Al, 8) drawings, and he admitted that it all begun as just a bit of fun. "I saw a picture Dom had drawn of a weird looking animal, and it occurred to me that, like most children, he always seemed to draw the eyes and mouth on the same side of the animal's head," Tom explained. "The thought crossed my mind that maybe it was us adults not looking at the world correctly and that maybe the kids had it right. So I decided to take to Photoshop and reimagine animals, faces, vehicles, and objects just like kids had drawn them." Clearly, it was a hit, if his 650,000+ Instagram followers — which includes Eva Chen and Zachary Levi — are any indication.

"The thought crossed my mind that maybe it was us adults not looking at the world correctly and that maybe the kids had it right."

Since starting Things I Have Drawn in 2015, the London-based dad has been adding to his funny Instagram page, and although it all started with Al and Dom's drawings, Tom now creates images "from all sorts of places," he said. "But it's mainly from kids of parents who have submitted them to us on social media (we get tons sent to us) and from friends." Naturally, I had to know which was his — and of course Al and Dom's — favourites. Personally, I can't stop looking (and cackling) at the ugly/cute Easter Bunny. Al and Dom, however, still love their dad's first ever Photoshop job — of their late family cat — and Tom still finds the "weird turkey, emu, elephant hybrid that Al drew" hilarious. As the story goes, he found this drawing laying around the house one day and has no idea when it was drawn.

In 2018, Tom also created a book with a series of exclusive drawings. Titled, Things I Have Drawn: At the Zoo (£8), the book follows Dom, Al, and Tom as they explore a zoo and discover a bunch of weird animals along the way. Keep reading to see a fabulous collection of drawings from Things I Have Drawn, handpicked by Tom himself.

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