Monotype Jimmy

Taking art classes has forced me to come up with a lot of new ideas whether I want to or not. Sometimes you have to come up with ideas in class, while other times you may be told to come to the next class with six design ideas. Needless to say, I learned to bring a sketchbook and photos to class for a source of ideas. So when I used the close up photo of Jimmy to make a monotype in my printmaking class, it was because I had run out of ideas, not because I was working in a series. And because he's adorable, of course. And with Jimmy, I almost always get a closeup because he always marches towards the camera when I take his picture.

How To Make A Symbolic Jimmy Cat

Last spring I signed up for a drawing class at my local community college. This wasn't something I was expecting to enjoy--I just wanted to eliminate my "I can't draw" mentality. The process of learning to draw has always seemed too tedious and structured. Of course, I was wrong. Although admittedly my drawing class was rather nontraditional.

Now I'm hooked and working my way through the art curriculum. I find it fascinating that you can give a group of people a project--a set of constraints--and end up with so much diversity.

Here's an assignment from my design class. Take a 5X7 (inches) black and white (gray scale) photo with lots of contrast and draw grid lines on it every quarter inch. Next, take a blank piece of paper and draw a light half inch grid that is 10X14 inches. Then transfer the values square by square from the 5X7 photo to the 10X14 grid using a different pattern in each half inch grid. Aagh!

Given I was going to be looking at the photo a lot, I thought it should be something adorable...like Jimmy Cat.



I used symbols as my patterns for the most part. Because I have a hard time with relative values, I took a 10 step photo gray scale and then made a matching patterned gray scale. This took me several (20) tries. But once I had the mapping, it was much easier to remain consistent and not veer too light or dark. And yes I think its funny that Jimmy has an envelope in the middle of his forehead.