It always seems a bit off-putting to new friends when they walk into my room and see that the majority of the artwork in my room is nudes.

The nudes are tasteful (in my opinion) and they all have an abstract theme to them, in that they are women who could not truly exist, but they all have larger bodies.They are all vibrant and filled with a million kinds of brushstrokes, and there is nothing professional about any of them, but I still keep them in a collection above my bed. They are messy and wild, and they are the most beautiful artwork I could come home to each day.

I remember the exact point when I decided I was going to start painting nude portraits. I had taken a trip to Asheville, NC, and had wandered into an art studio. This particular artist painted his subjects with such vibrant colors, that they seemed to take on entire personalities. With cooler tones, you could detect a certain sadness. With warmer tones, the women took on this electrical current that was simply mesmerizing. But as I looked through the gallery and around other places in Asheville, I began to notice that all of the women were petite.

Every body is beautiful, and the paintings I saw throughout my stay were all so vibrant and beautiful. But I wanted to see bodies with big thighs and tummies. I wanted bodies that looked like the body I saw in the mirror, or the ladies I saw bathing on the beach. I wanted to incorporate that vibrancy, but I wanted to imitate the life I was surrounded by. So I decided it was my turn to paint nudes.

My first painting is still my favorite. She is colored in a cool blue tone, with no hands or head, just a blue smoke erupting. She is plus size and filled with rolls, and once I had painted her, I knew it wasn't something I could do just once. There was something so empowering about painting this larger body, and still finding her so beautiful.

The abstract touches became a recurring theme throughout the paintings. They never have heads, and if they do, then they are completely covered by hair or decoration. The focus becomes the body. The women within the paintings are not a beautiful face and a default body, they are beautiful women who have a visible, vibrant personality.

The paintings became a statement for me. They were the essence of body positivity. By simply painting nude women with some extra pounds, I was making a statement about what beauty was, even if that statement was just for myself. To me, the art is beautiful, meaning the subjects are beautiful. To admire my art, is to admire a larger form. The more I began to paint, the better I was feeling about my own body.

As a woman who has always been a bit larger, this was the most cathartic experience of my young life. I slowly began to stop pinching my stomach, or looking into mirrors with a grimace. I began to see in myself what I was seeing in the women in my paintings. Beauty.

I was not beautiful despite my size, I was beautiful because of everything I was made of. I began to gain the same confidence I tried to exude through my paintings. I began to see myself as a work of art. It wasn't something I expected after my first painting, it was simply a wonderful side effect.

Now, painting nudes has become one of my favorite things to do. I save it for special occasions, and I'm always thinking about little touches I'd like to add to the next ones. My paintings have rolls, tummies, stretch marks, and take up more of the canvas than most, but that's what I find so interesting about them. They are by no means the work of some great artist, but they are my interpretation of beauty. They are what is special to me. And I am so grateful to have discovered them as a medium.

To see the beauty within that which is considered deviant, destroys the concept that it is deviant. To acknowledge that something is truly beautiful, is to make it so. By creating artwork that demonstrates beauty, I myself have become beautiful. And that is a beauty I plan to keep pursuing, until the entire wall is filled with canvas.