Artist spends two years covering every inch of his house in doodles: 'The world is getting doodled'

An illustrator from Kent, England, Sam Cox, better known as Mr. Doodle, had dreamed of creating a "Doodle House" ever since he was a teenager. After buying a six-bedroom home in 2020 with his wife, Alena aka Mrs. Doodle, the 28-year-old has tried to draw on every surface of the house. In a two-minute stop-motion video in which the artist shared the two-year process, the whole house looks like a sketchbook filled with doodles. Think of stove tops, bedsheets, furniture and every square inch of every white brick in his house covered by the artist's endeavor. Even the bath and toilet in the bathroom have been completely drawn on, according to the Daily Mail.

"The completion of the house is just the beginning of my childhood dream to doodle the entire planet and to encourage the art world to recognize doodles as an art form. I am so excited that my doodles now have a permanent home in the UK," Cox told Kent Online. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Cox revealed that he had envisioned the home as a "living artwork" that was influenced by the cartoons and video games he had played as a boy. "My main inspiration still goes back to when I was a kid watching Tom and Jerry, Wacky Races and SpongeBob SquarePants, and video games like Crash Bandicoot. I always wanted to draw characters for video games," he shared.

Cox shared that when they bought the house, the previous owners didn't want him to draw on the house. He said, “They told me whatever you do, please don’t doodle, but I didn’t listen.” This is the artist's longest project ever and the first stage alone took a grueling two months to finish. The main bedroom, which the artist embellished with artwork depicting "dreams," and the en suite bathroom, which has 2,000 sea-themed tiles, served as the starting points. Cox was determined to finish it alone because he "wanted to say I'd done it all myself."

Cox confesses that he did not conceptualize any of his drawings. For instance, the corridor is adorned with illustrations of Noah's Ark, while the stairs are illustrated with scenes from heaven and hell. "I had a rough idea of the theme but the individual doodles are spontaneous." Cox used black acrylic paint and a bingo marker-pen in four different sizes to create the indoor doodling. To ensure that they do not deteriorate, every surface has been lacquered. He also used spray paint to decorate the outside of the building.

The artist shared a post showing the outside of his house, including a doodled Tesla parked out front, captioned, "The world is getting doodled!" In an Instagram post, where he answers questions about some technicalities, he wrote, "The whole house is real, everything is doodled, the doodles were all hand doodled for the animation it's not CGI." He also revealed that he used up about 900 litres of white paint, 401 cans of black spray paint, 286 bottles of black drawing paint and 2296 pen nibs. He goes on to share that the animation was entirely created by him, consisting of 1857 photographs "painstakingly taken between September 2020 and September 2022."

The only drawback to Sam's eccentric home is that curious neighborhood kids have started ringing the doorbell to inquire about it. Cox shares that he wishes to permanently reside in the Doodle House with his wife and their doodle dog. And, because the couple's neighbors haven't complained yet, they have no immediate plans to downgrade the property's appearance or move. "I'm unlikely to be persuaded to move, even if it was amazing money. I'd feel sad leaving this house, because it's my first one."