“My favorite things to doodle are monsters, aliens and food,” says 11-year-old Joe Whale, aka “The Doodle Boy,” the creative wunderkind from Shrewsbury, England. He’s been doodling incessantly since he was 6 and he doesn’t like to draw the same thing twice, so that’s a heck of a lot of aliens, monsters and food.
When Joe doodled in his notebooks at school because he was bored, his teachers weren’t amused. Art instruction was limited at his school, so Joe’s parents decided to send him to after-school art classes to give vent to his artistic talents. His art instructor was so impressed with Joe’s playful, quirky doodles that she posted them on her social media accounts and they took the internet by storm – the cult of The Doodle Boy was born!
A local restaurant, Number Four, saw Joe’s drawings and hired him to doodle an entire wall in their dining room which he worked on every afternoon for a week. His dad Greg was blown away. “I was sitting there in awe a little bit,” he said. “He would look back at the wall like he was stuck, sigh a little bit, and go back and come up with 20 more images at once.”
Joe prefers to doodle using black Sharpie markers and Paper Mate pens. He also draws on a tablet. He has doodled on his own bedroom wall and even on the back of his brother’s black guitar, using a white marker.
The Doodle Boy’s mom Vanessa manages his website, Instagram and Facebook pages. You can purchase prints of his favorite doodles, and T-shirts emblazoned with his doodled slogan, “Everyone Is Different.” Proceeds go to fund social causes and his college education. Joe also creates fun drawings regularly that are free to download and color.
“We just thought if there's an opportunity to help Joe moving forward to do whatever he wants to do, we should put in every effort to make that happen,” Greg Whale said. “I would advise parents to encourage their children to always follow their passion and dreams.”
Photos: Thedoodleboy.com