Creative artists use all kinds of different tools they have at their disposal to create something amazing. In James Cook’s case, the tools in question are manual typewriters that he utilizes to create incredibly detailed illustrations.
Cook started this creative journey during his college years, inspired by the life story of a fellow typewriting artist Paul Smith. He suffered from severe cerebral palsy and was unable to hold a pencil or paintbrush, so he decided to use a typewriter to express himself and create amazing works of art over the course of six decades.
Smith’s journey inspired Cook to give typewriting drawing a try. His earliest works were unsteady and rough, but he now has a collection of 30 typewriters that he uses to produce his paintings.
“It was like learning a whole new language (literally) made up of punctuation marks, letters, and numbers. It was how I assembled these marks on the page that would reveal the image once you stepped back from the drawing,” he told Bored Panda.
Cook mostly draws inspiration from architecture, still life, and nature, and his illustrations can take up to 30 hours to make.
