Name: Doodles.
Age: The first bored woman probably traced a sooty finger along a cave wall about 73,000 years ago.
Appearance: Anything you like: squiggly lines, Ed Sheeran’s head on a lobster’s body, or the molecular structure of Tellurium. Queen Victoria favoured donkeys, apparently.
Hmm, mine are usually of Saturn devouring his son, except the son is half Jacob Rees-Mogg and half pretzel. I dread to imagine what a handwriting analyst would make of that. It is almost as disturbing as the doodles medieval monks made in illuminated manuscripts: axe-wielding monkeys, murderous bunnies, that kind of thing.
A normal day at the Guardian. Why are we talking about doodling? Because the artist Sam Cox, known as “Mr Doodle”, has just finished doodling every inch of his six-bedroom house in Kent, outside and inside. Bath, cooker, windows, loo, the lot.
And what did that involve? Two years, 900 litres of emulsion, 401 spray-paint cans, 286 bottles of drawing paint and 2,296 pen nibs.
And what did he doodle? West favours Keith Haring-like, densely graphic, black-on-white motifs. They are themed by room: ocean for the bathroom, dreams for the bedroom, and heaven and hell for the staircase.
Dear God, it’s like stepping inside a migraine. Does he have a partner? Surely no one else could live in this? He does, actually, and he’s even doodled her Tesla. She is also an artist and says she finds it calming.
Calming like a blow to the head, maybe. Note they do not actually live in the house yet, but plan to move in soon.
And what do the neighbours think? They haven’t complained, apparently. The former owners won’t be thrilled, though. “They told me, whatever you do, please don’t doodle. I didn’t listen,” Cox told the Sunday Times.
I bet he’s absolutely tanked his house value. And in this economy! Unlikely: a four-metre Mr Doodle canvas sold for just under $1m in 2020. There is more danger of people trying to take chunks away.
Is this even doodling though? Isn’t doodling what you do while you’re supposed to be doing something else? Yes, but often doodles are where real breakthroughs happen. Leonardo da Vinci seems to have reached an early understanding of the laws of friction through doodling, and Jimi Hendrix came up with his first album design and title on a Brussels pub beermat.
Go on, what did you doodle during this conversation? Nothing special: some light cross-hatching, a few flowers and an army of angry bunnies marching towards the Conservative party conference at Birmingham and West Midlands convention centre.
Do say: “Doodling reduces stress and improves short-term memory.”
Don’t say: “Nine hundred litres of white emulsion, please.”
