A watercoloured drawing of a hand holding a huge ice cream cone with nut sprinkles. Text says "Get your bacteria", and "FRESH" in a starburst.

A watercoloured drawing of a brown skinned babe who has long green hair and horns, and is throwing up a middle finger. Text says "Wild & Free".

A watercoloured drawing of a fairy floss bouffanted white skinned babe with heart cheeks and a poked out tongue.

Side note: Before anyone asks (eep!) I’m not doing these small watercolour drawings by commission/ request for the moment. They’re just personal pieces. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not terribly confident I can do a good job and well… commissioned art earns me very little money because people (understandably) don’t have much money to spend on original art. It’s important for me to have some ~reduced pressure~ art practice time too, so I can work on improving.

Without delving too deeply into all that super raw stuff, here are some drawings I’ve produced. The first two are commissioned digital illustrations of Lillian and Jaimielee (the Fancy Bonanza winner); the rest are further explorations of ugly/ vain/ amazing/ perfectly cromulent embodiment.

Illustration of Lillian, who is fat and pale skinned, wearing a sheer black blouse with a red polka dot pencil skirt and red shoes. She stands on a checkerboard walkway in space!

Illustration of Jaimielee, a fat babe of colour with orange hair, helping her fluffy white dog Muscles stand up in the middle of a suburban street. Jaimielee wears a blue chevron striped top with a grey cardigan and blue jeans; Muscles wears a cute grumpy puppy face.

Illustration of myself (with longer blue hair) wearing a disdainful look upon my face and a singlet that says "Don't invalidate my ugly."

Illustration of a fat babe with brown skin and candy pink hair standing astride a yellow bike with a basket full of flowers, books, food and a white puppy.

Illustration of a babe with white skin, zits and huge honey coloured hair looking in a hand mirror. A speech bubble above says, “Look at yourself!” and text on the mirror says, “Stop looking at yourself.”

As I got more into fat activism I started to realise that the problem wasn’t me, it was this construct of beauty, and while it was nice to know it might not all be my fault… it still didn’t feel good to embody ugliness and to be treated poorly because of that. Not everyone has thought me ugly, but those that haven’t (and do not) surprise me!

As a blogger posting photos of their outfits it feels like ugliness still holds me back – because when I look at the most popular bloggers, they all embody and uphold traditional beauty standards and practices. I do not. The other day I was thinking about this, and trying not to blame myself for not being a beautiful and successful blogger, and I realised that maybe embracing ugliness was an answer. I will never have smooth skin. I doubt I’ll ever shave regularly again. I have visible tattoos, piercings, stretch marks, and scars. I am fat. I am not particularly graceful. I laugh loudly. I don’t cross my legs. Yet I still identify as femme, because it’s important to me to embrace a femmeness that challenges my culture’s screwed up notions of femininity and beauty.

Illustration of a fat person in a pink polka dot bra and undies with stretchmarks and hairy legs sitting above a banner that says "Ugly femme pride".

I don’t have to be beautiful, and I don’t owe it to anyone either. It took me two years to fully understand this after first reading Lesley Kinzel’s Uninvested in Being Beautiful. I was so struck by this epiphany today that I decided to draw it. UGLY FEMME PRIDE!

In recent years social media websites have emerged that enable users to curate huge collections of images, and it’s been through sites like Tumblr and Pinterest that I’ve noticed this lack of marginalised embodiment. The optimist in me who thought that social media and the internet would allow for better access and representation has been proven incorrect, it’s never been more obvious that our western media’s normalised body (remember: thin, white, slim, young, cisgendered and able bodied) is so imprinted on our brains that we only see subjects in art and images with that body as beautiful or aspirational. So the art and illustration on Tumblr that is most reblogged and liked is basically the same kind of image seen in the mainstream media.

My POC, disabled, queer, and fat friends say, “but where am I?” Is the problem that image makers aren’t producing images with a diverse range of people as subjects? Does that mean that I as an image maker am part of the problem? I think I might be, for all the image of fat people that I create, I definitely know that I do not make many images of POC; this is my white privilege in action. I could be trying harder. So in order to improve my creative practice I asked my Tumblr friends to submit outfit photos of themselves for me to draw.

This project is probably going to be a very long-term one, because my objective is to improve my technical skills and portray a huge diversity of embodiment.

Image - illustration of afrotitty, a fat brown skinned babe, wearing an animal print sweater and a short black skirt with black fishnet tights and flat shoes, carrying a bright red bag.

Image - a digital illustration of ashrussell, a fat pale skinned babe making a joyful face, bunching up the skirt of a black dress with a blue cardigan and green tights.

Image - a digital illustration of Tiffany, a fat brown skinned tattooed babe, wearing a pink t-shirt, black pleated skirt with floral tights and black sandals, holding a large brown envelope bag.

Image - a digital illustration of nudiemuse, who is fat and dark skinned, wearing a black jacket and dress which she holds up to show off purple and black striped tights and the most badass lace up boots.

Image - a digital illustration of Heidi, who is fat, tattooed and pale skinned with pink and purple hair, wearing a khaki sleeveless dress and navy slip on sandshoes.

At the moment I have quite a huge collection of self-submitted images that I am working from, and I’m also going to offer custom illustrations for people to commission in my shop. Submissions for my Fat Babes Illustrated project are welcome, primarily if you are fat, a person of colour, disabled or queer. The difference between the two is that if you submit your photo to my reference collection it may or may not be used in my project; and if you purchase a commissioned illustration I will definitely complete your portrait, and you will get a high resolution file to print for yourself.

That my life’s decisions could spin off in fractal like directions and send alternate mes off chasing them gives me ample excuse to gaze longer at my navel. What crucial decisions have bought me to where I am today, and am I solely in control of those forks in my paths or do other people’s influence on me also influence my paths? (Um, yes I think so most definitely!)

It sounds like I’ve just come back off a mushroom trip, but it inspired me to illustrate three identities. Two I know to be true and I experience them every day, but one is more fun… a Differnatalie in a parallel universe.

An illustration of me as definatalie, posing for an outfit photo wearing a blue jacket, red skirt and longer hair, making a fun happy face.

An illustration in bland colours of Prime Natalie sitting on a couch looking at a phone. She has spots on her face and chest.

An illustration of Differnatalie in bright fluro colours sitting on a fancy chair, with short white hair, tattoos, a short pink dress and fishnets.

I have ideas for more alternatalies, most of which are the identities I know I have in this universe. There’s probably a billion others in other universes.

Ok, back to reality now, thanks for indulging me!

A pen drawing of objects like blouses, dresses, shorts, bike tights, a satchel, swimming togs, sunglasses, marker pens etc. Lettering says, "Things I want but can't afford right now."

I’m trying really really hard not to let this drawing thing go, but I have a feeling I over-did it yesterday. That’s the sort of thing that I’m really good at, I throw myself into something until I burn out! I’d rather not burn out, in fact it kind of scares me, so I will try to take it easy today. This drawing was my warm up, things I want to get before summer starts. It was quite calming drawing this list because I usually forget things I need or, if I have money, I spend it on things that are unnecessary!

Maybe I can draw more lists as warm ups in the future. How about:

• Things in my drawers
• Favourite art tools
• Objects on my shelves
• Stuff on Nick’s desk
• ????? (I’ve run out of ideas!)

A pen drawing of a chai latte surrounded by cupcakes, cinnamon sticks, tea leaves, ginger plants and plaits weaving around them all.

A pen drawing of a cut tomato and a whole tomato, some truss tomatos, basil and garlic.

Then I finished off the top drawing and almost immediately after started doodling tomatoes. I’ve kept these illustrations uncoloured and unshaded because I’ve decided to keep drawing my cravings and see if I turn out enough to fill up a colouring book!