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.

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!

I haven’t done much drawing in the last six months, even though I’ve really really wanted to my cognitive abilities have been severely diminished. When I thought about what an elaborate donut might look like, I really wanted to draw it. So I started drawing, bit by bit. Then I added more and more until it looked like a new coat of arms for me!

A pen illustration of three sprinkle-topped donuts stacked on a unicorn horn that is held up by four fat babes and surrounded by a deer, a unicorn, licorice allsorts, diamonds and bacon. Text says “The most elaborate donut ever” and Miffy the little dog runs in front wearing a top hat.

I don’t know if I can adequately convey how proud I felt to finish this drawing but if you are a maker of things, you might have some idea. Lots of things pop in and out of my head and most of them are forgotten, some of them are written down and a miniscule percentage are actually acted upon. To pull tangible things out of your brain is a painful experience and requires concentration, revision, memory, composition, editing and diligence. In my current situation this is made even more difficult, so being able to put my elaborate donut down on paper feels like a massive achievement.

Lots of people ask me if I’d ever do a colouring book of my drawings and in the past I never gave much thought to it, but this drawing seems more like the type of thing that might be enjoyable to colour in. I’ve been colouring Nicole Lorenz’s Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace book over the last few weeks and loving the hell out of it, so when people responded so positively to this drawing on Tumblr and asked if I would make a colouring book… I started to think that I might actually pursue the idea.

What do you think? Would you like to colour in my metaphorical food cravings?

A photo of one of my framed paintings sitting on a window ledge. A fat woman with big hair pulls needle and thread through a doily heart on her chest.

A detail photo of a painting of a fat lady with big hair full of paisley.

A photo of embroidery in a hoop, taken on an angle. "I hope I made you cry" is embroidered in red thread, and paisley and flower shapes are embroidered in white on a white handkerchief.

A photo of two black framed drawings sitting on an outdoors staircase. Both drawings feature watercolour drips and very intricate ink drawing.

A photo of a white framed drawing sitting on a window sill. The words "Sadness rusts nibs" sit in the centre of a floral and paisley border, drawn with red ink.

All of the work for sale has featured in exhibitions in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne as well as in print publications such as Curvy. The framing is professionally done. I invest hours and hours of work in each of my pieces and hope to embellish your walls!

Fancy Lady Industries

Over the last six months you may have noticed that I have not been producing much art at all. I’ve had no concentration as my mind frantically bounced from thing to thing, so I lost my ability to get into the right sort of mood to feel creative. For the longest time I’ve drawn to meditate and express myself, so this was pretty distressing for me. I’ve not been able to work as a freelance artist, and because of that I’ve not only been grieving drawing but feeling guilt about not bringing in income. So when you compound that with my general long time feelings of worthlessness, anxiety and social phobia as well as the symptoms of hypothyroidism… you end up with a recipe for a very unhappy Natalie.

If you’ve never stayed in a psych hospital, you might not know much of the experience. It’s lonely, scary and hard to know if you can trust people when they take away all your agency to control your life; and because I’m Type 1 Diabetic and threatened to take an overdose of insulin, they insisted on following me around everywhere and removing my ability to inject myself with insulin and monitor my own needs. Hospital is also a hugely boring place. My phone charger and earphones were taken from me, and there was no TV except for in a common area. If you are a smoker, you might find yourself smoking three times as much as usual because there’s simply nothing else to do, and in the psych hospitals I’ve been in the doctors and nurses don’t bother giving you grief because patients have way more pressing heavy shit to deal with. So I found myself smoking a lot, but also magically I started drawing again. After a six month drought it didn’t come naturally to me but there was nothing else to do.

A pencil drawing of a fat girl with sewn on blush and long tendrils of hair. A gecko with an exposed skeleton sits over her forehead.

For the first day I didn’t speak to anybody. I was in shock and confusion, not knowing how to negotiate my way around this strange place full of new people. One person sat down next to me and we started talking about this and that and then he asked what I did. When I said I drew and wrote about stuff he asked if I could draw a gecko. I don’t really draw animals so I wasn’t sure if I could. I found a card with a flower on it slipped under my door, found a pen at the bottom of my bag, and started drawing an outline of a gecko with an exposed skeleton inside it. I gave it to my new mate and he said I was a genius! Flattered and encouraged, I bought a sketchbook when Nick took me out for half an hour and started drawing a gecko on a girl’s head. And so I started drawing again.

A black pen illustration of a bird skeleton sitting atop an oval frame surrounded by paisley and flower shapes.

A pen drawing of the words "I had to go deep to find love this morning" surrounded by paisley , flowers and flourishes. Underneath says "To the bottom of a pit."

When other patients saw me drawing they’d come up to look, and sometimes they’d strike up conversations. Some wanted me to draw things, often pretty rude and hilarious stuff, but I made no promises! One man was really sad and said something like, “I had to go to the bottom of a pit to find love this morning.” I probably paraphrased but it struck me and I doodled.

A black pen drawing of a naked fat girl with big hair prancing sadly through a circle of tree branches.

When I was admitted on Thursday night I felt a lot of shame. It’s not a new thing. I’m pretty sure lots of people who suffer from mental illness have been shamed into being quiet about their experiences and what they have to live with. I was pretty sure I’d be disqualified from the Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female competition for being crazy! For so many years I have worried about what people will think of me when they learn “the truth” about me because the most common feedback I’ve gotten is that I’m flaky, full of excuses, sensitive or given to indulge my melancholy. I’m more than that, I know, but years of negative conditioning has made me feel a lot of guilt and shame.

I got out of hospital on Monday, however I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a place of creativity (“alpha waves” apparently) again so I can maintain this drawing “spurt”. People email me about commissions all the time but I just don’t think I can do it yet. (I’m sorry if I haven’t responded, I get so much email and I am so anxious about disappointing people.) I need to look after myself, and also give this new metric buttload of meds time to help me feel better.

Oh and my goodness, you should have seen some of my hospital outfits. Comfy psych unit chic at its best!