The first drawings by Carlos de la Cal “fill” the English books of La Enseñanza. Although he can’t remember which was the first, he saw “guys with goggles or flamethrowers” in those. He always liked to draw. One of his latest illustrated this page and he took it as a challenge himself: “I like these things.” Although perhaps with this one, taking over the logo of the newspaper, he is not going to make money. So better focus on the above. Those who have taken him from a Valladolid who likes to enter his cave, as he assures, to draw to be close to winning a prestigious international doodling contest.

During the last week of May, the man from Valladolid shared a “poster” with 61 illustrators from around the world during the grand finale of Red Bull Doodle Art, this imaginative doodling competition which brought together 120,000 participants from around the world. whole in 2024. . He came as a Spanish winner. He had slipped into the thirty finalists thanks to a creation in which he paid “a tribute to the Red Bull lifestyle, to active and extreme sports”. Two renowned Spanish illustrators, Mathías Andrés and Pablo Hablo, have chosen Carlos to represent Spain in Amsterdam.

“For the Nacional one, it took me about three and a half hours. For the World Cup, it was already more than 15 and a half hours, ”he says.

De la Cal was aware of the competition because in 2017 it had already been presented. On this occasion, no luck. In this one with a prize that allowed him to live for four days with talents from all over the world.

The contest mechanics were the same for all five. One of the jury members was Canadian artist Scott Martin, better known as Burnt Toast. He presented five designs to choose from for each national winner: “I selected a turtle riding a person as a skateboard.” From there, the man from Valladolid created his doodle, caricatural, filling all the spaces and making everything interact.

This industrial design and product development engineering student from the University of Valladolid decided, with one year left of his studies, to do the graduation project (TFG) for a clothing brand. He did a crowdfunding, bought the necessary machines and started making the designs with his illustrations. It’s something he continues to do at “La cave”, the business he opened with Javier Baizán just over a year ago. He did a master’s degree in digital illustration and his dream is to devote himself to drawing. Right now, he’s doing it with his tablet. “Comic? No. I hope. No graffiti or tattoos,” he clarifies.

And so far it’s not bad. In 2020, he won a national competition from the Epson company, taking a printer, with which he works in ‘The cave’. And a little over a month ago that of Red Bull.

In Amsterdam, where they held workshops, conferences, drawings and entered the world of NFT, digital assets, that is, an online version of the creations that are displayed on the Internet, he was close to succeed again. He’s done it before by getting noticed by Burnt Toast, a world-renowned digital artist and collector by celebrities and art lovers. The British Mr. Doodle (Sam Cox) should also have been present, who managed to sell his works for more than a million euros, even if in the end it was little.

His presented drawing, like that of the other 61 participants, is already as an NFT and has already given him the first economic returns. Although having won would have allowed him to put it in line with the “touch” of the Canadian, who sells each of his creations for tens of thousands of euros. “Now I’m preparing a bunch of artwork to upload to the NFT world,” he concludes.

Who knows? Maybe the next Mr. Doodle will be from Pesquera de Duero.