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Provincial fish and chip shops are not, as a rule, hotspots for people in search of a selfie. But the modest chippie in St Michael\u2019s, a leafy Kent village in the London commuter belt, is an exception. Its owner, Ahmed, says a growing number of his customers come to get a photo with the hand-drawn black-and-white mural that fills one of the walls.<\/p>\n
Barely a day goes by, says Ahmed, without someone snapping the cartoon fantasia populated by cheerful fish, winking burgers and jolly packets of fries. He\u2019s even been asked if he\u2019d sell it. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing,\u201d says the chippie\u2019s proud owner, who likes to pull up a chair and study the mural at the end of a busy day. \u201cThe more you look at it, the more you see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why all the interest? The design is the work of Sam Cox, a 32-year-old English artist better known as Mr Doodle. In just six years, Cox \u2013 who grew up in St Michael\u2019s and still lives there \u2013 has gone from an unknown who would trade his work for a portion of cod and chips, to a social media phenomenon and certified art star.<\/p>\n
![\"Mr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4a67f3e25fcc327393a1bda903ae0b2225a4f47b.jpeg\")
Mr and Mrs Doodle, aka Sam and Alena Cox, in their Doodle house.<\/p>\n
Nowadays, it\u2019s hard to venture online without seeing a video of Cox drawing the densely interlocking lines he calls \u201cgraffiti spaghetti\u201d. Dressed in a white jumpsuit decorated with his own designs, he uses time-lapse videos to concertina marathon drawing sessions into social media-friendly bulletins adored by his fans. His largest works now sell for close to $US1 million ($1.42 million) and it\u2019s estimated he\u2019s earned a total of $US15 million at auction.<\/p>\n
Unlike Banksy or Keith Haring \u2013 the American artist and activist who Cox acknowledges as an influence \u2013 Mr Doodle is firmly apolitical. It used to worry him, he says, but he got over it. The upside: brands ranging from Fendi and Puma to Kleenex and Hellmann\u2019s are desperate to work with him. \u201cWe\u2019re open to most collaborations,\u201d he tells me. \u201cBig brands help the work get seen by a bigger audience, which I love.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recently released DoodleLand: A Colouring Book<\/a> is yet another brand extension. A collection of 46 hand-drawn doodles, it\u2019s part colouring book, part puzzle. In the style of Martin Handford\u2019s Where\u2019s Wally? books, Cox has hidden characters including Mr Doodle, Mrs Doodle (his Ukrainian-born wife Alena) and Baby Doodle (their three-year-old son Alfie) within his intricate designs. The book looks set to capitalise on the surging popularity of adult colouring books<\/a>, but the artist insists he\u2019s been planning it for years. It\u2019s divided into 10 zones with names including Flower Farm, The Funky Factory and Marshmallow Mountains. It\u2019s an approach inspired by early computer games like Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to make something that felt like more than the colouring books I remembered from when I was a kid,\u201d he says. \u201cThey felt relatively basic. Even if people don\u2019t colour this book in, they can still enjoy it; the level of detail is extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n The real DoodleLand \u2013 \u201creal\u201d being a relative term in this instance \u2013 is a short walk from the chip shop. Hidden behind a set of high gates is the \u201cDoodle House\u201d, a six-bedroom home that Cox bought for \u00a31.35 million ($2.56 million) in 2019. A year later, after having every surface painted white, he set about fulfilling a long-held dream: covering a house, inside and out, with his monochromatic scribbles. Everything from the kitchen utensils to the Tesla in the garage is heavily doodled. A time-lapse film<\/a> of the project, which took three years and consumed 900 litres of emulsion, 401 cans of spray paint, 286 bottles of ink and 2296 pen nibs, has been watched more than 7 million times.<\/p>\n \u201cThat conversation is interesting because it only seems to happen in the art world. No one goes to a hairdresser and says, \u2018you\u2019re not really a hairdresser are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sadly, or perhaps mercifully, the Doodle House is off limits today. Alfie has chicken pox, so his dad meets me at the door of the enormous studio he\u2019s built in the grounds. First impressions are of a character from a cartoon or video game. He\u2019s dressed in one of his trademark jumpsuits (he owns more than 40) and white sneakers. His pale face is framed by red curls and matching beard. Cox is polite and friendly, but you get the impression he\u2019d rather be off somewhere drawing and listening to retro computer game soundtracks. He\u2019s the antithesis of Mr Doodle who exudes a manic energy that\u2019s more Wonka than Warhol.<\/p>\n I ask him if I\u2019m talking to Sam Cox or Mr Doodle. \u201cSam Cox,\u201d he replies. \u201cMr Doodle is the anchor of the world that I\u2019m drawing around, but most of the time I\u2019m Sam. It\u2019s only when I\u2019m making stuff that I become the character and blend with the drawings a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve seen the 2024 documentary The Trouble with Mr Doodle<\/a>, you\u2019ll understand why the line between artist and alter ego is important. In 2020, Cox fell ill with flu-like symptoms and began to experience hallucinations and panic attacks. It was the start of a nightmarish chapter that led to him being sectioned and confined to a psychiatric unit for six weeks. In the documentary his mother, Andrea, recalls how her son ran through the hospital corridors screaming, \u201cI\u2019m Mr Doodle, and I need help!\u201d<\/p>\n In the depths of psychosis, Cox believed Andrea was Nigel Farage (the British populist politician) and Donald Trump had asked him to doodle his infamous wall. \u201cAt the time it just made so much sense,\u201d he says ruefully. \u201cWhen you have psychosis everything feels like it\u2019s about you. We couldn\u2019t watch TV for more than five minutes because I thought the program was talking to me or it was about my life. I\u2019d think the radio was playing a certain song because of something that happened to me when I was 14. It\u2019s really tiring for the people around you.\u201d That\u2019s an understatement, surely. His biggest regret is the cruel things he said to Alena in an attempt to drive her away. Fortunately, he failed. The couple tied the knot in 2021 wearing heavily doodled wedding attire.<\/p>\n The documentary presents this terrifying episode as a life-and-death struggle between Cox and his persona, an art-world Jekyll and Hyde. He isn\u2019t so sure. Partly because he can\u2019t recall much of what happened, but also because the situation was likely more complicated. \u201cIt makes sense for people to think it was the character that drove me to that [psychosis], but there could have been many other factors.\u201d<\/p>\n Does he worry he might relapse? \u201cI couldn\u2019t rule it out, but I don\u2019t worry about it,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel like my life is in a much better place, but you can never guarantee it.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, there are three members of Team Doodle in the studio. Cox\u2019s 86-year-old grandfather, David, primes his canvases and keeps his drip pens \u2013 the sponge-tipped refillable markers favoured by graffiti artists \u2013 charged with ink. Tom, his younger brother, is one of his managers, and Morgan Davies, his former art teacher, is the studio\u2019s creative director. Cox\u2019s mother and father are also on the payroll and Alena formulates much of Mr Doodle\u2019s social media strategy. He seems to wrap his family around him like a blanket; understandable given the events of 2020. \u201cIt\u2019s a trust thing more than anything,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey can tell me when they think I\u2019m doing something that isn\u2019t as good … they can be honest with me. And I know they have my best interests at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s eager to show me his latest project. \u201cI\u2019m doing a million drawings,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re one of the first people to see it.\u201d It turns out he\u2019s serious. Sketchbooks containing the first 10,000 drawings are laid out on tables and packed into wooden crates. \u201cI\u2019ve been dreaming about doing this since I was a teenager, but I was always struggling to find a feasible way to do it,\u201d he explains. \u201cI did it on my phone for several years and did about 250,000 drawings, but they didn\u2019t feel real. I wanted physical drawings. We looked at drawing on ping pong balls or coins, but that didn\u2019t feel right.\u201d<\/p>\n His solution was to order 10,000 identical sketchbooks each containing 100 pages. Over the next \u201ceight to 10 years\u201d he\u2019ll add a hand-drawn doodle to every page. The fact he still has 990,000 drawings to go doesn\u2019t seem to worry him in the least. \u201cIf this was a game of football we wouldn\u2019t have watched a minute of it yet,\u201d he says cheerfully.<\/p>\n The million drawings project, which Cox regards as a natural sequel to the creation of the Doodle House, will be recorded in a series of time-lapse videos disseminated on social media. It\u2019s an approach he has employed since his days as an art student in Bristol where the Mr Doodle persona was born. Back then, the films were rudimentary and a little cringeworthy. One shows him dressed in full Doodle regalia \u2013 matching suit, hat and suitcase \u2013 trying to persuade startled shopkeepers to swap goods for one of his drawings. Today, his work is captured by drones that hover above his work in the cavernous architect-designed studio. Making a million drawings, or covering a house in doodles, may not generate income per se, but it keeps the world\u2019s attention on Mr Doodle. That focus translates into solid auction prices and a stream of brands that want access to the DoodleLand audience.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully, at the end of my life, I will have done about four or five of these mega-projects,\u201d he says. \u201cThese are the self-initiated things I\u2019d like to be remembered for.\u201d<\/p>\n Editor’s pick Davies, who quit teaching to work with Cox, says the project is only feasible because his protege works so quickly and is seemingly indefatigable. When he was at university he would regularly draw for 16 hours straight; the longest session lasted 36 hours. No one is sure what will happen to the million drawings once they\u2019re completed, but that\u2019s not the point. Says Cox: \u201cIt\u2019s something I want to challenge myself to do. It\u2019s the endurance and performance elements that attract me most. I don\u2019t try to put a meaning or a message in the drawings. My thing is more about quantity. Instead of trying to make another Mona Lisa I\u2019m trying to do something more like the pyramids.\u201d<\/p>\n The apolitical nature of Cox\u2019s art, his apparent disinterest in meaning and his frequent brand \u201ccollabs\u201d have inevitably raised questions about the significance of his work. His Hong Kong gallerist Pearl Lam positions it as fine art with prices to match; detractors see him as a graffiti artist whose work can be repetitious and owes a debt to Haring and others that is not sufficiently acknowledged. His own take is refreshingly offbeat. \u201cIf the whole world agreed that I wasn\u2019t a fine artist, I wouldn\u2019t really mind,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d be fine with that as long as I can keep doing what I want to do. That conversation is interesting because it only seems to happen in the art world. No one goes to a hairdresser and says, \u2018you\u2019re not really a hairdresser are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Everything](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6bf383b43e212819fec3109c741f24ed61be4c47.jpeg\")
Everything in Sam Cox\u2019s house \u2013 from kitchen utensils to his Tesla \u2013 has been covered in doodles.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/dfa9c8d47b81cb4f303c1dade7e88499c94ea210.jpeg\")
The project took three years and consumed 2296 pen nibs.<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/cf2f7e87e22f238e7b81e520c50c7ef31617dd46.jpeg\")
In real life, Cox doesn\u2019t exude the same manic energy as Mr Doodle.<\/p>\n![\"Sketchbooks](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6b9670ab09e331f0c81af59a7af13372d95d5eba.jpeg\")
Sketchbooks containing the first 10,000 drawings of Mr Doodle\u2019s intended one million.Richard Jinman<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c24d41b84eeac294bbb61f87994651379ac5498a.jpeg\")
The modest chippie in St Michael\u2019s where Sam Cox\u2019s early work is on the wall.Richard Jinman<\/p>\n![\"From](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781771176_571_94ac76eaf10134acaf9cc8dc53a116b44aa9390b.jpeg\")
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