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A world-renowned artist has revisited his roots, donating £10,000 to his former secondary school.
Sam Cox, better known as Mr Doodle, returned to Homewood School in Tenterden last week to hand over the super-sized cheque.
The money will go towards Homewood's art and graphic design department, where he first developed his distinctive and unconventional creative style.
The 27-year-old has gained more than 2.8million followers on Instagram and despite having had a relatively short career so far, his pieces already fetch six-figure prices.
Mr Doodle's work often does the rounds on social media, with one video of his process gaining more than 32million views.
He also put on an exhibition in 2018 where he took over multiple rooms at the Ara Art Center in Seoul, South Korea, in collaboration with Samsung.
He visited last Wednesday to hand over the cheque, but frequently returns to the school to run creative workshops for students.
He has even decorated several spaces within the school with his intricate and fun doodles.
Explaining why he was making the donation, Sam said: "Homewood School has always been such an important place to me.
"I have such fond memories of drawing away endlessly with such amazing encouragement and guidance from my teachers. I really value those years, and the work I created at Homewood still remains amongst my favourites.
"Whilst drawing each day, my mind still reverts back to the classroom and my graphics lessons, which is where it all began for me.
"It feels great to be able to give something back to the school, the department and the teacher who gave me so many opportunities and so much support.
"Mr Davies is an inspirational teacher and even to this day he still regularly advises me on my work. I cannot thank him enough.
"I truly hope that the donation will help to provide something that the department and the students lucky enough to study graphic design at Homewood will find useful for years to come."
Accepting the donation, teacher Morgan Davies said: “Sam has always given generously of his time to encourage and coach current Homewood students to find and express their creativity but this donation was completely unexpected.
"We haven’t yet decided what we will use the money for within the department; we need to think carefully about ensuring that it will be used to benefit the maximum number of students over time to discover and reach their artistic potential.”
