Woman’s Amateur Painting Inspires Viral ‘Paintception’ Trend on Reddit

Sometimes the artists themselves are their own worst critics. They often don’t see the beauty of their work and it takes others’ appreciation before they even realize it.

Case in point, one schoolteacher from Jacksonville, Florida recently achieved viral fame after her son shared her painting on the web. As it appears, Matthew Decker posted the art of his mom, 55-year-old school teacher Cindi and much to their surprise, it inspired a ‘paintception’ trend.

Matthew wrote:

“My mom painted this and said no one would like it. It’s her 2nd painting.”

Not long after the original post, Kristoffer Zetterstrand, an artist from Sweden and also a Reddit, user posted a painting of himself, showing Cindi holding her art. He said he did it for a ‘warm up’ task.

He captioned the image.

“I painted somebody’s mom.”

Canadian student Laila Amer came next and said:

“Took a while and not perfect, but I painted the guy who painted the other guy’s mom.”

And things just snowballed from there as more and more artists hopped onboard and shared their takes on the painting.

Understandably, Cindi’s extremely grateful for the impact her art made on the internet. Some have even tagged her as “the honorary mom of Reddit.”

She later had her own Reddit account so she could thank everyone for what they did. She said:

“I am overwhelmed and over the moon how this has turned into a positive movement.

“When my son posted that picture, I freaked out knowing he posted it to Reddit, I was in fear I was going to read a lot of hateful comments. You all have proven me so wrong.

“I’m assuming most of you could be my kids, and y’all get a bad rap in this world. You all are compassionate, caring, and a ton of fun! Thanks for uplifting me! You all have inspired me instead.”

More than 40 artists have since joined the fun.

Meanwhile, Kristoffer, the first to make a painting of Cindi and her art, shared in an interview:

“It took a couple of hours. Then I thought it might be entertaining to post a picture of me holding it – at the same place on Reddit I got it from.

“Many have contacted me and told me that it made them genuinely happy.

“It’s a bit absurd to see a quick oil sketch that I did for fun completely blow all my serious work out of the water in terms of views.

“I’m not complaining, and it is funny, but it makes me scratch my head.”