Swimsuit Edition -

Scenes From A Beach!

Welcome to our Swimsuit Edition! Here are some words and images from artist Paul Delacroix, from our Summer 1997 issue. Enjoy!



Bicycle Girl: Two-dimensional computer painting. In this piece, I try to capture an exuberance and athleticism. I want to show a woman who is fit, and fat, and full of life.	Wader: Two-dimensional computer painting. With modern swimsuit pieces, I try to impart a sense of classical Greco-Roman goddess presence in the way a large woman moves. I want to show a fat woman and her natural grace.

Painting is something relatively new for me. I've been drawing and sketching in different mediums for many years, but I've only picked up an interest in color and in painting in the past four years or so. I started with computer painting, and then I took a sabbatical from that to learn about oil painting on canvas. Now I've returned to computer painting and find that the lessons I've learned on canvas have helped me a great deal for this medium, too.

As a teenager, I first pursued cartooning. I went from Mad magazine�style cartooning to political editorial cartooning. There was a period for about five years when I did nothing artistically at all, from about 1982 to 1987. When I returned to art, I was interested in figure art, human anatomy, and figure drawing. I had become a comic book penciler as one of my creative outlets, and that taught me a great deal about human anatomy and physiology in drawing. The comic book medium is more of a challenge in terms of learning the purity of drawing than any other art medium I can think of. After several years of this, everything I drew was from my imagination. I never used a model. It was at this time that I developed an interest in painting plump women, because I felt I could finally do them justice.

My interest in large women began at a very young age. I remember checking out art history books from the library and looking at the Rubens and Titian paintings of nude, heavy, female figures. Many other artists in Rubens's time depicted equally plump figures, but Rubens is generally the most remembered. He was simply mirroring the fashion of his time. I think the world of him.

I've taken art classes, but my art is basically self-taught. My day job is working in art for advertising and video game companies. But my love of fat women and depiction of them, in art, is my spiritual core. I'm not sure the art world is ready for me yet! The main success story of fat people depicted in the fine art world is Fernando Botero's work, and, in my opinion, Botero uses large people as props, like wax fruit. I don't see any warmth or affection or human quality in his work.

I've been involved in the size acceptance movement since about 1993 and have many activist views on the subject. But that's a different interview! To large women I want to say, You don't have to change anything. You don't have to prove anything. What you may see as ugly is, to me, really beautiful. Dimples, for example. I don't like the current buzzword cellulite. When a baby has it, it isn't cellulite, is it? There is so much brainwashing out there in the media. I wish women could look in the mirror and see the simple beauty that is there. The truth is, I paint fat women the way they really look. I don't minimize anything. Nor do I maximize anything for sex-object appeal. I just show what I see: the natural aesthetic beauty of a fat woman's body.

If you're interested in commissioning art from Paul (or if you'd just like to have a friendly chat about his favorite subject, large women), call 972-293-7535 or e-mail him at pdelacroix@aol.com. You can write to him at P.O. Box 1418, Cedar Hill, TX 75106-1418.



Radiance. The Magazine for Large Women
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