Born in 1921, Paul Smith was an American with severe spastic cerebral palsy. His condition made it impossible for him to draw with a pencil or paint with a brush; however, Smith discovered that by using one hand to steady the other, he could press typewriter keys. He then began painstakingly creating art using a manual typewriter:
Smith limited his pallette to the symbol keys above the numbers, locking the shift key to use them.
It’s worth noting that this was well before ASCII art; Smith began doing this as a boy, in the 1930s. You can see a lot of his work here.
James Cook is a current-day Briton. Though he holds dual degress in Architecture, Cook learned of Smith’s work, decided to give it a go himself, and is today a full-time typewriter artist:
Cook changes the ribbons in order to get color. And as you can see in close-ups, he often uses relevant wording in the images:
Cook, who is based in London, sells prints of his work here.