A famous artist made his dream home come to fruition by covering his entire house in doodles for two years.
Sam Cox, also known as Mr. Doodle, is a world-renowned illustrator. He became famous in 2017 when he transformed an Appear Here pop-up into a live art installation at Old Street Station in London.
Apart from being a famous artist; however, he had another lifelong dream. He had always wanted to have a “doodle house” since he was a teenager. He was inspired by the cartoons and video games he had played as a child.
In 2020, he bought a 6-bedroom-house with his wife, Alena in the charming town of Tenterden, Kent.
The seller of the house did not want doodles on the walls but he did not mind their request. The artist in him and his passion for doodles took over and he started drawing on every corner of the house.
Cox shared a two-minute stop-motion video of his dream house covered in doodles. From the walls to the furniture and even amenities, he didn’t leave any surface free of drawings, including the television, stove, and bath, which are filled with black-and-white doodles.
According to Cox, he did not plan any of his doodles but he made a theme for each room. The stairs are chock-full of Heaven and Hell drawings while the Hallway is bursting with Noah’s Ark creations.
His main bedroom has a “dream” theme while his en-suite bathroom has a sea theme. It has 2,000 tiles covered in doodles of different sea creatures.
“I had a rough idea of the theme but the individual doodles are spontaneous,” he said.
“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.”
Cox shared that he used black acrylic paint for his doodles and a bingo marker pen in four different sizes. He used spray paint for the outside property for a more artistic result. In total, he used 286 bottles of paint, 900 liters of emulsion, and 2,296 pens.
The first phase of his doodling project was challenging and took two months to complete. Still, the great illustrator was committed to finishing it on his own. ‘It’s the longest project I’ve done. I wanted to say I’d done it all myself.’
He was proud to show the world his dream home, which he doodled without anyone’s help. “The whole house is real, everything is doodled, the doodles were all hand doodled for the animation it’s not CGI,” said Cox.
The artist shared an animation showing the outside of his house, including his doodled Tesla. The post said, “the world is getting doodled!” He said that he did the whole animation by himself, consisting of 1857 photographs that he took over the last two years.
Cox said he is excited that his doodles now have a permanent home in the UK and he and his wife are planning to stay in their doodle house in the coming weeks.
There is only one downside, though: curious neighbors couldn’t help but ring the doorbell to ask about his doodle house. Fortunately, no one has complained about his doodles so there is no need to change the aesthetics of his home just yet.
‘I’m unlikely to be persuaded to move, even if it was amazing money,” Cox said. ‘I’d feel sad leaving this house because it’s my first one.’
The success of his dream “doodle” house inspired Cox to further spread his creativity by doodling more houses in his area and possibly making a “doodle” town.
“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,” Cox concluded.
Follow Mr. Doodle’s Instagram page to see more of his works.