Essex typewriter artist hopes to achieve Guinness World Record
He's aiming for the record for the largest drawing made using a typewriter
A typewriter artist from Essex is hoping to achieve a new Guinness World Record with a two-metre long drawing of the London skyline.
James Cook, who's 25 and from Braintree, hopes to achieve the record for the largest drawing made using a typewriter - it's the first record of its kind and one he made a custom application for.
He says the idea came after a couple commissioned him to complete a panoramic drawing of the London skyline: "I told them it would be my biggest artwork to date and then thought this might be a good opportunity to actually see if any typewritten art has been made that size before.
"To my knowledge, no one has!"
He's now due to find out the fate of his attempt on 10th August.
James told us the piece took about 300 hours of typing, and a lot of effort, to complete: "This picture has taken me about two months, equivalent to working almost everyday.
"There's somewhere in the region of about half a million type written marks, probably more, and the drawing spans about two metres...
"The typewriter's carriage, that holds the paper, is normally no wider than an A4 piece of paper, so to make bigger drawings you have to stitch together lots of sheets of paper at the very end...
"Trying to get each sheet of paper to line up with the next piece of drawing is a challenge in itself and it never gets any easier, even though been doing this for eight years.
"It's still tricky, but it's enjoyable in a weird way."
He says the picture is so big that it can't be delivered by hand: "I don't even know if it's going to fit in the lift - we've had to hire a van to take it round to them."
The attempt will be on display in the artist's new exhibition, which opens today (July 15th) and runs until 7th August at two Essex venues - the Wonky Wheel Gallery in Finchingfield and The Moot Hall in Maldon.
On display alongside the London skyline drawing will be some of James' other works, and he says there's more to his art than initially meets the eye: "One thing that people like to see in the work is hidden messages and letters...
"What's really nice is that people won't just walk past it, they'll look at it from a distance and see a drawing, but then they'll take one step closer and suddenly realise, especially if they haven't seen the work before, that it's made up of all of these letters, numbers and punctuation marks."
A signed portrait of Tom Hanks will also be on display at the exhibition, after James sent Hanks a portrait he'd drawn of the Oscar-winning actor, who is a fellow typewriter enthusiast, and received an unexpected letter in response.
James told PA news agency at the time: "I thought I'd give it a shot and sent him the print of his portrait with a type-written letter explaining my profession, but after that I completely forgot about it.
"I was blown away when I got my print returned with his autograph and a short message."
The message handwritten by Hanks, who reportedly owns more than 120 typewriters, read: "To James Cook. This is super! Tom Hanks."
To find out more about James' exhibition and artwork, visit his website.