James Cook – Typewriter Artist!
Here is something you don’t see every day – an artist in London who creates wonderful black and white portraits and landscapes using just an old fashioned typewriter!
From what began as a hobby in the background whilst studying architecture, James Cook now concentrates full time on this work, accepting commissions and working on location with a portable typewriter on his lap!
James Cook and examples of his work. Credit: jamescookartwork.com
Can you believe these three dimensional images are done with a manual typewriter, with the typical two-colour ribbon?!
Since beginning in 2014 with just one typewriter, James has now produced more than 350 typewritten drawings.
His work varies from being the size of a postcard, to large drawings made up of a number of sheets which are hot pressed together to create something much bigger than the width of the feed of a typewriter would allow!
James says that “Each drawing is assembled from a variety of characters, letters and punctuation marks using the forty-four keys of a typical typewriter. Information is overlaid and the keys are tapped at variable pressures to achieve tonal shading.” With such meticulous detail, a small work can take just a couple of days, through to a couple of months for a large landscape.
There are more examples of his work in the following short video:
James has produced artwork for celebrities, television presenters, musicians and famous businesses, including American actor Tom Hanks, singer Kelly Clarkson and cast members from the hit Sci-Fi television series Doctor Who.
A by-product of his popularity is that James has acquired more than 50 typewriters, many of which have been generously donated by fans of his work who are delighted that something just left abandoned gathering dust in their homes now has a second life.
In interview in 2020 with Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies of the Australian Morning Show, James says that he has now learned how to repair typewriters and keep them in good working condition! Luckily, for many of them, the ink ribbons (which the keys strike to transfer either the black or red colour to the paper) are often still available!
You might like to watch the following 2.42 minute video showing James in action, talking more about how he goes about his incredible work.
James was inspired by an American typewriter artist almost 100 years ago, Paul Smith, who had cerebral palsy.
Tomorrow we will return to read about his even more remarkable story......
Footnotes
With thanks to James Cook. You can see more of his amazing work at his website www.jamescookartwork.com