Final Project

 


My grandmother has a very large appreciation for the arts and over the years has collected a vast majority of pieces from paintings to pots. Being of Native descent she is very proud of our heritage and loves to support Aboriginal artists as much as she can. One of her favourite artists that she has multiple paintings from around her house is Benjamin Chee Chee. Seeing his works around her house has always caught my eye so for this project I decided to try creating a piece inspired by his artstyle. For this project I created this project digitally using my tablet, I originally had planned to use India ink and calligraphy but I was having some troubles figuring out how to use a calligraphy pen and I couldn’t quite achieve the smooth almost one stroke lines that Chee Chee uses in his art. I chose to draw cats in this piece because they’re actually supposed to represent my two cats. The one on the left is very playful and hyper but also a bit of a brat like my cat Ginny, and the one on the right is my cat Maggie who is quite calm and relaxed but also a little bossy because she’s quite old now. They’ve been a huge part of my life growing up and have definitely helped me get through some hard times so I'm very grateful for them. This piece was a challenge for me as I’m used to creating overly detailed artworks and with Benjamin Chee Chee’s artstyle it challenged me to simplify my art using few strokes and varying linework to achieve this final outcome. 


Benjamin Chee Chee born on March 26, 1944 in Ontario was a self- taught Canadian artist of Ojibawa descent who is known as one of the most prominent figures of the Woodland School of Art. Chee Chee gained renown for his spare, elegant depictions of geese and other birds, insisting that these images did not carry symbolic meaning, describing them instead as “ creatures of the present”. He unfortunately committed suicide at the age of 32 on March 14, 1977. I wanted to create this piece in his art style because I’ve always been amazed at how he’s able to capture an animal and it’s shape so perfectly with such few lines. Looking at some of his pieces where the animal is in motion like for example his piece, “Four Geese in Flight” (shown above)  just from looking at it it almost feels as though you are taking off with these birds and experiencing these movements with them, and it’s almost exhilarating it evokes this strong sense of freedom and being very stressed these last couple of weeks with school seeing these birds flying away It just makes me want to fly away with them. Also looking at Chee Chee’s art always makes me think of my grandparents and every time I’ve visited them, they moved around quite a bit while I was growing up but the one constant thing they would always have hanging on their walls was some of his artwork.

( here’s some pictures of my cats just as a little bonus haha! The ginger cat is named Ginny she’s the one that’s on the left in my drawing and the fluffy black and white one is Maggie she’s the one on the right. )





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