At just 15 years of age, Joe Whale is an artist in demand, collaborating with some of the world’s most famous brands. What’s even more fascinating is that the teenager, who was born in the UK but now lives in Adelaide, found his fame through doodling.

Joe is known as “The Doodle Boy”, a name he and his father Greg coined when it became clear, aged seven, Joe was headed for big things. Since then, the teenager has worked with big-name brands including Nike, Disney, Crayola and even the British royal family.

But Joe’s exceptional talent and astounding career almost didn’t get off the ground thanks to a short-sighted first grade teacher in Shrewsbury, a small town in Shropshire in the UK, where the family used to live.

“I would rush to get my work done in class so I could draw, but the teacher would tell me to stop doodling,” Joe says.

Joe’s parents Greg and Ness decided to go to the school to investigate.

“We said, ‘Is he disrupting anyone?’ and they said, ‘No’. So, we said, ‘What’s the issue?’. It was weird, it didn’t make sense.

“So, we put him into an after-school art class, and he was only there for about two lessons when the director asked to see his sketchbook from home. Joe was obviously much more advanced than she was used to.”

Impressed with what she saw, the art teacher then posted one of Joe’s doodle drawings on social media and it got a very positive public reaction.

“This just reaffirmed that we were right to support Joe’s artistic path,” Greg says. “Things just went from there. He was then asked to paint a mural on the wall of a local restaurant. I then posted a video of that on my LinkedIn page, and it just went off, it went viral with three million views. I didn’t post it expecting anything, I was just proud of him. I thought things would just calm down, but then the media in America got onto it.”

That came in the form of one of Joe’s first big offers, to fly to LA and doodle the backdrop on the set of kids’ talent television show Little Big Shots, alongside host, comedian Melissa McCarthy.

As Joe says: “That was pretty awesome”. But as Greg says: “It escalated from there … I had to learn pretty quickly how to deal with lots of enquiries.”

And so, The Doodle Boy phenomenon took off globally.

“Once my dad posted that video of me painting the restaurant wall, things blew up,” Joe says. “I had been doing art since I could remember, so it felt normal to me. But I started to get lots of offers for projects.”

Joe’s bold designs, mainly done in graffiti texta in black and white with splashes of colour, feature eye-catching shapes and characters, including some of his favourite things – food, monsters and aliens.

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The quirky cartoon-like aesthetic, and the pace at which Joe can create them, creates captivating social media content, managed by Greg, and at last count, Joe had 200,000 followers.

The family, including Joe’s twin brother Jesse, and younger sisters Phoebe, 12, and Marley, four, are all creative – Jesse is an astute guitar player, Phoebe plays bass guitar and even little Marley is already showing signs of having artistic talent, drawing shapes and flowers well beyond her years. But Greg concedes Joe’s talent and global trajectory has taken wife Ness and he by surprise.

“Both the boys were really good at art, but when Joe was about seven, he started to draw in a cartoon style which looked quite different and it developed really quickly – the more he drew the better he got,” Greg says.

The family first moved to Adelaide six years ago, living in Aldgate, after Ness and Greg discovered the state on holidays years earlier.

“Ness grew up in Sydney, and I’m from the UK, but we travelled to Adelaide years ago and we always knew we’d come back once we had a family,” Greg says. “We just thought Adelaide seemed like a great place to raise kids.

“After our initial move here, we had some business stuff for Joe to attend to in the UK, and while we were there he got signed with (department store) Marks & Spencer, so we stayed a bit longer than expected, then moved back here again a year ago.”

Joe’s Marks & Spencer deal involved creating a kids’ clothing range showcasing his doodles, and he is also an ambassador for the iconic British store.

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“That was great, and all the profits were donated to Young Minds, a youth mental health charity,” says Joe, who displays a calm maturity well beyond his years.

The 15-year-old says his work is not just about creating fun imagery, but he also aims to convey positive messaging, with his doodles containing slogans such as “Kindness First”, “Imagination”, “Alive”, “Stay Grounded” and “Everyone is Different”.

“I hope the messages that come through my work are about positivity,” he says. “I just like being free, because that’s how I feel when I draw. Since I was seven, I’ve been happy drawing, and I think that’s been portrayed in my art.

“So, when people look at my work, I want them to feel the same, to definitely be interested in the drawing and feel happy and joyful.”

One of the first global brands who also rushed to ink a deal with the unique young artist was Nike, who signed him on as a “co-creator”, working with the global sports brand on a variety of projects.

“That was when I was 11 and I did some marketing work for the Air Max campaign, the motif,” says Joe, who is soccer mad and plays for a local club here, alongside his brother.

“Through the Nike deal, I was then asked to go to St George’s Park, which is training ground for the England soccer team, and I did a live mural there as they were preparing for the World Cup in Qatar. So, I got to meet the England team, all the players were really interested in what I was doing. Players Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka drew on the wall with me. That was pretty amazing. I also did a piece for the England women’s soccer team, as well.”

Joe’s designs are also available on clothing such as hoodies and T-shirts, and he’s collaborated with clothing brand Parajumpers, creating doodles for sweatshirts and puffer jackets. Joe says he doesn’t pre-plan his creations but just puts pen to paper and the magic happens.

“The stuff I draw is constant really and it just kind of flows,” he says. “I’ll do one character, then another character and it goes from there. I do monsters, aliens, cartoon characters, mainly stuff you don’t see in real life, imaginative stuff.

“I’m so engrossed in what I’m doing that I don’t really think at all. A lot of people say it’s a gift, but it’s just very natural to me. But the practice has really helped. If you look at what I did when I was nine and the stuff I can do now, I’ve progressed a lot I think. I’ve been The Doodle Boy since I was seven years old, it just relaxes me.”

Joe has also illustrated a series of five children’s books called Bad Food, through a deal with Scholastic Books.

“It took me a couple of months to do the illustrations for each book as it was heavily image-based,” he says.

Greg has managed Joe’s career full-time for the past five years, quitting his role in sales and marketing at a car welding manufacturing firm in the UK.

As he explains: “I think when he got signed with Nike when he was 11, that was when I knew I’d have to dedicate my time to him. Nike had so many projects for him that I had to constantly ask for time off work to go to London or the States, and it just really got to the stage where I had to dedicate the time to Joe and that side of things.

“I’m quite good at detaching. I take care of him, obviously, and do what’s good for him, but I also understand that it’s business, so I don’t get personal on things. That’s why Joe doesn’t get involved in any offers until later on, when it’s all confirmed. He’s just been offered so many different things, but you have to take your time, think as far as ahead as possible and imagine, if he takes that contract, what does it do, positively, negatively?”

Once he’s locked in a particular opportunity, Greg discusses it with Joe and together they decide if it aligns with the family’s values. For example, Joe was recently offered a huge deal with a major fast-food company, but both he and Greg decided to turn it down.

“It was just not the right fit for Joe, we don’t eat that food and we wouldn’t feel right about that, regardless of the money,” Greg says. “They didn’t really go into money anyway, but they said it would reach three million kids a day. I told Joe about it and he understood and agreed.

“We obviously always try to keep them morally right, do things for the right reasons and then good things will happen, that sort of thing.”

When the big deals do come off, Joe says it’s “surreal”, including when he was commissioned by Disney in 2022 to create a Lightyear-inspired doodle which was used to promote the upcoming movie.

“I had to go to a recording studio in England and they had a big canvas set up for me,” he says. 

Joe’s talent has also been recognised by the royal family who commissioned him to do a drawing that captured Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge’s train tour across Scotland, England and Wales in 2020.

“That was probably one of the biggest things for me,” he says. “I was disappointed I didn’t get to meet them, but it was Covid. They did write to me directly thanking me for my art pieces, they also responded to me on their social media saying, ‘thank you and keep up the great work’.”

Joe says he’s enjoying life in Adelaide, and he’s currently a Year 10 student at St John’s School in Belair.

“I enjoy school, especially art and sport. When I got there, I didn’t really tell anyone about Doodle Boy, but someone found it on YouTube, so the kids know now.”

Since moving back to Adelaide, Joe has come to the attention of local galleries and recently held an exhibition through Ex Animo Art, with his doodles printed onto local fashions at a VIP catwalk event.

“I created the designs and then Sejour Club boutique put together the pieces and when I saw it on the catwalk it really stood out,” he says. “I love seeing my art in different worlds, that was really cool.”

Ex Animo gallery owner Andreas Buse says Joe is one of the most unassuming young artists he’s ever met.

“The reason I think his art is worth something – apart from the well-known fact that prominent people grant him their attention – lies in the person of the young artist himself,” Andreas says. “More than half of his young life, Joe has already dedicated to his passion. The Doodle Boy doesn’t seem to strive, and the relaxed way he approaches his creative process is more curious and confident than I see in many others who are much longer in the art game. Only time will tell what the matured fruit of his persistence will reveal.”

The Doodle Boy will also be creating works as part of this month’s South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA). Called The Doodles in the Sky, the event will be held at Pepo, a cafe on King William Road, where Joe will draw live as diners watch on.

Another recent project saw Joe creating a huge mural in Norwood, on the side wall of Argo cafe on the Parade.

“The wall was painted black and I did my work in white, with one of my main characters in the middle, called ‘Buddy’,” Joe says. “I first drew Buddy surrounded by stars when I was about nine and I’ve done new versions of him, and I was really happy with the character, so I’ve stuck with him.”

Other exciting projects on the horizon include a clothing deal with Crayola, which will see Joe doing a live drawing event at Macy’s department store in New York later this year.

“It’s going to be such a cool event to launch our collaborative clothing line, I just hope it will inspire others to be creative, too,” Joe says.

Greg says the family will travel overseas for the Macy’s performance, and the trip may also include an exhibition in Cologne, Germany.

Joe has also created all the characters for an animation movie called The Remarkables and a film script is currently doing the rounds of LA.

“This started as an NFT project with (LA-based production company) Orange Comet, but they quickly saw there was much more potential than just this and began developing the characters into a much wider universe,” Joe says. “I’m so excited to see where this could lead, it would be amazing for this to develop into a full-feature film.

“I would love to do more animation in the future. My brother Jesse and I recently did work experience at a Sydney-based animation company called Cheeky Little Media.

“We were mentored and taught about digital animation, so that was really cool because I’m interested to go down that path more. I want to do what I’m doing now, but I want to branch out into animation and the fine art world as well. I just want to open as many doors as possible.”

Joe’s works are bold and striking and have caught the eye of many big brands including Marks & Spencer in the UK.

At the start of 2025, Joe signed with licensing agent Haven Global, based in Sydney and Melbourne, meaning Greg is now able to step back a bit from managing his son’s career. However, the proud dad, who has taken on a new role at Volkswagen in Adelaide, still plays a major role in decision-making with Joe and says his job has always been to simply create as many positive and enjoyable opportunities as possible.

“I’ve tried to open doors, so that when he’s older, he can decide what he wants to do,” Greg says. “He could do animation, he could do fine art, he could do publishing. At least those doors are all open to him. I’m a firm believer in things are meant to be and for everything to land as it’s landed, it’s just meant to be.”

Joe’s original canvas art works can sell for up to $7000, and while Greg is hesitant to discuss financial details he says of his son’s future, “He’s going to be okay”.

This article first appeared in the August 2025 issue of SALIFE magazine.