Fat Babes Illustrated is a personal project I’ve been working on recently, inspired by the complete dearth of marginalised bodies represented in illustration, and by the awesome babes who share photos of themselves on the internet. I’ve always said that representation and visibility are the main reasons why I blog, but when I looked at my own art practice I could identify a huge glaring omission of people of colour. I’m largely a self taught person, but the formalised visual art education I have undertaken has ignored people of colour as subjects. I’ve been taught to carry on a tradition of only deeming white, slim, cisgendered and able bodied people as suitable subjects, and I have been becoming increasingly pissed off with that as I talk to more people with marginalised bodies.
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.
A photo of the Brisbane CBD from across the river, with the Riverside Expressway looping over the mangroves on North Quay.
Nick and I headed up to attend TEDx Brisbane yesterday, and as we drove into the city we both felt a bit sad that we aren’t still living there. The whole day was a little weird and overwhelming for me, feeling like a bit of an odd bod amongst a crowd of people I thought were there to listen to new ideas… but for some reason the vibe was off at TEDx this year. Maybe it was me, maybe I’ve romanticised last year’s inaugural event, but I just didn’t get a lot of what people were putting down.
[Warning: there's an animated gif at the end of this post]
A photo of the audience in the hall for TEDx Brisbane.
Despite having lots of feelings and not knowing what to do with them, there were standouts for me. The unrestrained enthusiasm of Edward Harran as he spoke about being feeling at home on the internet as well as his own inner internet, having access to such a stimulating and exciting amount of information and its potential for unlocking creativity in people. I started using the internet in 1995 and immediately recognised it as an exciting tool for learning, but at the same time realised that the learning I would undertake would rarely be formally recognised. The separation of IRL and URL still exists 16 years later, and Harran noted this frustration too. His talk made me feel like I wasn’t alone in being excited and awed by being able to access, learn, share and collaborate however I felt like the point sailed clear over many heads in the audience.
My favourite talk was by Hazel Dooney, the only female speaker I saw (granted I left at lunch, with two more women speakers to go… good work organisers…) and an Australian artist I’ve followed online over the past few years. Her writing is blunt, brutally honest, confessional and sometimes cutting but as Dooney’s soft voice introduced itself I was pretty surprised. I thought she’d sound harder. Many tweeters using the #tedxbrisbane hashtag roundly condemned Dooney reading from a clipboard, emphatically tearing off pages and dropping them on the stage as she was finished with them. What they utterly failed to comprehend was her ability to make you remember her, she may as well have ripped off post-it notes and stuck one with her name on every head in the crowd. Hazel Dooney has been representing herself as an artist, sticking it to the traditional gallery system, over the last few years AND she’s been doing an exceptional job of it by marketing herself online, communicating with her collectors directly. It was inspiring to see her speak in the flesh, and has firmed my resolve to run my own art practice by my rules.
Like I said, I left after lunch because I was quite overwhelmed by everything. We sat for too long, there were too many people, the walls were closing in, and I just wasn’t into most of the talks. I’d been looking forward to hearing from Eva Cox, but since she was the very last speaker I figured I’d be well over it by then. Nick and I went away from the crowd of suits and jerks (yeah, sorry attendees) to have a quiet moment and ended up taking some silly photos. It was just what we needed, some time alone to laugh and muck up.
A photo of me sitting down on the edge of a garden bed at State Library, holding an iPhone in one hand and a coffee in another.
A photo of me leaning against a railing with the Brisbane River and CBD behind me. I'm wearing a white t-shirt, a skirt with octopus tentacles, red tights and boots.
On Friday night I made this skirt from the Octopus Sweets fabric I’ve been hoarding for months, and trimmed it with some lace I bought at the Carrara Markets another sum of months ago. It’s super fun to wear! I put on some red teggings that Re/Dress sent me in the morning because it looked like it was going to be cold and stormy, but as you can see… the day turned out to be gloriously sunny and sweaty.
Top: City Chic
Skirt: Made by me
Teggings: Re/Dress
Boots: Evans
Necklace: Re/Dress
Sunnies: Giant Vintage
A photo of Nick wearing a black Beatles t-shirt with black shorts and beige slip ons. He leans against a green wall.
An outfit photo of me in front of a green wall.
A photo of the back of me looking over the river to the city with my arms outstretched.
A photo of Nick stroking his missing beard :(
Another photo of me in front of a brown wall, gesturing indescribably.
Yet another outfit photo, holding my octopus sweets skirt out.
So, in conclusion, if the organisers of TEDx Brisbane (or any other TEDx) want to contact me to talk about fat embodiment and activism, blogging and finding community online… I’m available. I’m pretty sure my ideas are worth sharing and they’ll be more exciting/ stimulating/ controversial than another white dude talking about urban planning. YAWN.
An animated gif of me prancing towards the camera.
A photo of Miffy wearing her vest lying underneath a chair on the balcony.
I made myself a copy of a pair of shorts the other day, and ended up with a bit of leftover lightweight teal denim. I pondered what to do with the scraps, then played with Miffy for a while, then looked at the scraps again and VOILA an idea was born: I would make Miffy a little vesty dress to prance around in!
Deciding it was going to be too hot to make the entire thing out of the denim, I concocted a pattern for a vest that would only sit on her back with lining and cute ruffles supplied by some floral remnants from my stash. I used some scrap elastic to secure the vest underneath her and around her chest, but she seems to have conveniently “ripped” the elastic around her chest so I will make a strap with a button closure to fix that problem. (We don’t think she chewed it, I have a feeling it got caught on something in the yard while we weren’t looking.)
A photo of Miffy sitting down with her back to the camera, wearing the teal vest with floral ruffles and a little pocket. She looks at the camera as if she were a seasoned vesty dress model.
A photo of Miffy sitting down and giving adorable face.
A photo of the vest close up, including a cute but entirely non-functional floral pocket.
A photo of Miffy in her vest side on, showing the ill fated chest elastic.
This has been a gratuitous Miffy based post. You’re welcome!
A photo of me smiling on a quiet Gold Coast street at night. I have new shorter hair!
This is what I wore to dinner the other night, separated into its own post because it might be a bit tidier that way. I think? I’m not sure, but here it is! You might notice that my hair is a touch shorter, I cropped off a whole bunch of hair to get rid of dead, peroxided ends and to even up the layers so when it starts growing it (hopefully) won’t be so painful.
I bought this top from Target the other week because it was 20% off, horah! The Target down the coast seems to have a lot more plus size clothing in the women’s and men’s sections, but as always their sizing is wildly erratic. Nick bought a short sleeved button up shirt without trying it on and when he did get around to trying it on, it was at least two sizes too small. What’s the deal Target?
An outfit photo of me, fat and pale skinned with short ash blonde hair, wearing a short self sleeve animal print top tucked into a black maxi skirt with cage sandals, a chain necklace and my trusty black handbag.
A somewhat blurry photo of me walking towards the camera.
Top: Target
Skirt: Made by me
Necklace: Made by me
Shoes: Evans
Bag: Dangerfield
A photo of the specials blackboard on a wall.
With a lot of sadness, my Malaysia Kitchen jaunt was rounded out with dinner at Paradise Point’s Sayang Malaysian. Apparently my desire to try a Malaysian restaurant outside our suburb was “weird” according to Nick, and akin to driving across Brisbane for a meal. That didn’t put me off, I’ve certainly driven across town for a good meal, so we drove half an hour to a cute restaurant just off the main strip in Paradise Point which is north of Southport. Look at me, I’m slowly getting better at Gold Coast suburbs!
A pretty dodgy phone photo of the menu with a beautiful illustration of three women on the front.
Sayang Malaysian is a family owned business and I really loved that you could tell the business was run with love and humour. We were greeted and served by the chef/ owner, his wife and daughter, and the menus were absolutely joyful to browse through with huge colour illustrations. I was too shy to ask, but I wonder if someone in the family drew them? Speaking of the menus, the range of dishes was pretty broad with hawker style food as well as other fusions of Malay, Thai and Indian, and there was a page dedicated to vegetarian and vegan dishes! Horah!
A photo of Nick holding up a glass of lemon, lime and bitters with a yellow swizzle stick.
A photo of me holding up a glass beer jug of ginger beer.
A photo of two entree dishes, calamari and vegetarian curry puffs.
The restaurant was pretty busy when we got there and there was a little wait for our entrees, but I actually preferred having the time to talk to Nick. A lot of the places we’ve been to served us so quickly we were out the door without having swapped more than a sentence!
I had the vegetarian curry puffs to start and was a little surprised at the small size, but when I bit into one I knew why they were so small… the beautifully curried vegetables inside were quite bitey! Nick reported that his calamari rings were cooked to perfection, so I couldn’t resist stealing one. Yes I’m a vegetarian now, but I have a bit of seafood now and then, and who was I to resist when Nick was raving about delicious calamari?!
A photo of my veggie char keow teow with bonus roti.
A photo of Nick serving up some rice and devil lamb.
I asked our waiter what she would choose if faced with the option of laksa or char keow teow, and she advised the latter unless I wanted to swim in laksa! Then she went on to say that her Mum only has laksa at home because it’s so messy! I agreed that it’s definitely a messy food and something I reserve for ultra laksa cravings, and went for the char keow teow. I told Nick to get the devil lamb because it sounded dramatic and naturally he acquiesced to my demands.
The vegie char keow teow was aaaaahhhhhmaaaazing. So many vegetables! So much tastiness! When the chef came out to say hello (he stopped for a chat with every table!) I had trouble forming superlatives. Nick almost preferred my dish, but once he got into the devil lamb he was raving about it.
A photo of my mango ice cream which swims in passionfruit and strawberry swirled sauce.
And what is dinner without dessert? A FARCE. I was hoping to order the sago gula malaka because I have faint memories of my Mum making sago dessert for us when I was a kid, but alas there was no sago. We settled for ice cream, hand made by the chef, which came out all moulded and in fancy sauce! I’m not a huge ice cream fan but my mango ice cream was delicious, kind of like a home made Weiss bar.
After patting our satisfied bellies we waddled out of Sayang Malaysian quite enamoured of the place. The staff are all charming and friendly, the food is ultra yummy, and the atmosphere is fun and lively. It’s definitely a place to bring my out of town friends to show them how fabulous Gold Coast Malaysian is.
Sayang Malaysian
10 Grice Ave, Paradise Point QLD
Phone – (07) 5529 5881
I dined at Sayang Malaysian as a guest of Malaysia Kitchen Australia as a Blogger Ambassador. This is my last post of four reviews over the last few months.
A digital illustration of me wearing a bikini surrounded by cut out dresses and shorts from Asos, Virtu and Sara.
I hate summer. I don’t understand why people rave about it because where I live at least, its an intolerable chunk of the year infused with sweat, chub rub, heat exhaustion and wearing far too many clothes. Since moving to the coast I’ve been a lot more casual in my dressing, so much so that I’ve felt a bit bashful about sharing my outfits here, but I’ve decided the embrace the dressing-down because there’s no point living near the beach if you can’t run around in shorts and a t-shirt.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find many shorts to my liking, and have only found a pair of cheap denim shorts at Best & Less, but what I’d really like are shorts of all different colours. I went on a browser window shopping spree for the first time in months to see if any of my regular haunts could supply me with my desires but was disappointed. I did find some cute dresses though!
In the end, I think I might actually buy some fabric and make a pattern from the denim shorts I have. I would like to sew some more dresses too, but can’t find any dress patterns I like!
The clothes I’ve got my eye on:
ASOS CURVE Printed Dress With Pussybow
ASOS CURVE Exclusive Floral Dress
ASOS CURVE Exclusive Chino Short
ASOS CURVE Exclusive Blue Bird Print Skirt
Virtu Hampton Dress
Sara Striped Dress
Virtu Urban Short
I’ve been watching Fringe lately and thinking about myselves, if I could ever possibly know the alternate mes that populate other parallel universes. A few years ago I went on a huge physics kick and watched any documentary I could find about the multiverse and wormholes and string theory, and even though I’m not really smart enough to know the mechanics of it all, the idea of it captures my imagination.
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!
Our third Malaysia Kitchen jaunt took us to the Kampung Malay at Robina, one of three in the Kampung family (the other two are in Mudgeeraba and Bundall). I did my obligatory internet research on all of the possible Malaysian restaurants on the south end of the Gold Coast, and Kampung won me over with its favorable reviews and online menu.
I didn’t get any photos of the interior but it reminded me a lot of the restaurants in Sunnybank, big rooms filled with large tables intended for feasting on banquets of incredible Chinese or Malaysian food. It wasn’t fitted out with fancy artwork and lighting like Little Malaya, but in stark contrast to that empty restaurant Kampung Malay was filled with people laughing and sharing food. Considering that I’m from a suburb known as the unofficial China Town, this was a GREAT sign that the kitchen was serving up the real fancy stuff.
A bowl of bright red soup in a small bowl with beans and tofu.
I can’t stress this enough: OH MY GOD, I wasn’t disappointed. When I ordered I asked if it was possible to order the coconut cream soup with tofu instead of chicken or beef as was written on the menu, and shortly after this bowl of perfection was set in front of me. The spices danced over my tongue. They did! I’m not a food writer so I’m not especially equipped to wax lyrical over delicious food, but this bowl of soup deserves poetry and songs. Nick had the same but with chicken and agreed with me, we could have eaten a bucket of this!
A photo of Nick looming over his lettuce roll.
A plate of roti with some curry dipping sauce.
Our next move was second entree, because we were there to eat and… why the hell not! Nick did battle with a lettuce roll and found the filling could not be contained by lettuce alone and ended up eating most of the filling with his fork! My roti was, how do you say, FREAKING delicious. I’ve made roti before, but it has never been this flaky and delicious! The chef performed some more spice magic with the curry sauce, it was every bit as complex and moreish as the coconut cream soup.
Our table full of gado gado, nasi goreng and red lemongrass beef.
Me smiling at the table and preparing to fill the tiny free space left in my stomach with gado gado.
Our entree extravaganza led to most of the real estate in our tummies being taken up, so when our mains came to the table we faced a conundrum. However, we were on duty so we tucked in! My gado gado was a little bit disappointing, I suspect because the spectacular version offered by Ipoh Laksa still has a fond place in my heart (and stomach). The vegies weren’t as crunchy as I’d like but the sauce lived up to the tantalizing standard set by the entrees. Nick thought his red lemongrass beef tasted “like goodness”, with a hint of spice and complex flavours.
I’m definitely going back to Kampung Malay, those spice combinations are calling me back for more.
Kampung Malay
Shops 1-3 Robina Quays Shopping Centre
Cnr Markeri Street and Robina Parkway, Robina 4226
Ph – (07) 5689 1077
I dined at Kampung Malay as a guest of Malaysia Kitchen Australia as a Blogger Ambassador. This is my third post of four planned reviews over the next few months.
A digitally coloured illustration of a fat girl with pastry for hair and dripping icing for cheeks as she licks her top lip. Because she is the Pastry Queen!
I’ve wanted to get a pastry related tattoo for a while now, and since I’m well into this whole cravings project I figured it’d be a grand time to kill these two birds with one stone. AND THUS: Pastry Queen was born!
It’s not the first time I’ve played with hair-that-is-not-hair-but-in-fact-other-things, and maybe that’s a theme for me. Hair can be a fun and ridiculous way to express yourself, especially because it’s so malleable. For a lot of people hair is central to their identity too. Right now, I’m having a kind of hair crisis as I grow it out so perhaps I fixate on hair drawings in these moments!
Image - a graphic of tshirts with my Pastry Queen illustration on the front and the text “Small to 4xl Pastry Queen tees”.
I’ve put this design on some t-shirts on Spreadshirt if you’re interested in letting the Pastry Queen reside on your chest. I’ve only just started my Spreadshirt shop, after being with RedBubble for so many years, and I’m finding it much easier and cheaper, with a bigger size range and better shirts too (I love Gildan shirts).
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!
Fashion
Body Image
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