--- title: Hot Dog Drawing Challenge: Artist Confusing the Internet description: Howard Lee, an illusion artist from Wales, is creating online turmoil with an incredibly lifelike drawing of a hot dog. canonical: https://time.com/4179102/hot-dog-drawing-challenge/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-13T18:44:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:28:43.853Z og:title: The Hot Dog Drawing Challenge Is Confusing the Internet og:description: Hot dog or drawing? og:url: https://time.com/4179102/hot-dog-drawing-challenge/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Hot Dog Drawing Challenge Is Confusing the Internet twitter:description: Hot dog or drawing? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Hot Dog Drawing Challenge Is Confusing the Internet > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Jan 13, 2016 6:44 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Jan 13, 2016 6:44 PM UTC Howard Lee, an illusion artist from Wales, is creating buzz online with an incredibly [realistic drawing of a hot dog](http://time.com/3969798/nathans-hot-dog-emoji/). A video on [YouTube](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/youtube/index.html) called “Hot Dog Drawing Challenge” shows Lee illustrating a perfect representation of a hot dog next to an [actual frank](http://time.com/3970311/national-hot-dog-day/). At the end of the minute-long clip, he squirts ketchup and mustard on both the hot dog and its sketched counterpart before using a knife to demonstrate which is real. The artist wrote that the deceptive image was created with Prismacolor and Copic markers on Daler Board. But the condiments used were real. **Read More:** [38 Things Americans Say They’ve Found in a Hot Dog](http://time.com/3962421/hot-dogs-2/) The video was posted in early December but has recently gone viral, with over 330,000 views to date. Lee’s [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHLsDgq8Hm5v3%5FZCauPdyKQ) is full of similar illusion segments, including drawing demonstrations of an iPhone and a chocolate Santa. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4179102/hot-dog-drawing-challenge/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4179102/hot-dog-drawing-challenge/"},"headline":"The Hot Dog Drawing Challenge Is Confusing the Internet","datePublished":"2016-01-13T18:44:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:28:43.853Z","description":"Hot dog or drawing?","url":"https://time.com/4179102/hot-dog-drawing-challenge/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food & Drink","Internet","viral","Art","video","hot dogs"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4179102/hot-dog-drawing-challenge/","name":"The Hot Dog Drawing Challenge Is Confusing the Internet"}}]}] ```