ARTIST Tanya Raabe is using her body for inspiration in a project combining traditional skills with computer technology.

And the finished work will aim to challenge attitudes towards the body beautiful.

Tanya, from Scruton, near Northallerton, will draw images of her body on to acetate sheets and take photographs with a digital camera, and then manipulate the images, some of which could be turned into three-dimensional maps.

She said: "I'm a disabled artist and I usually do work which is body orientated, about disabled people not being accepted because of the way their body is.

"My body is fairly twisted, it is not conventional, and I want to use sections of the body and distort them.

"It is about the idea of trying to make the body more beautiful and I would like to use the idea of touching up my own body."

Tanya has been given a £1,200 grant from Yorkshire Arts towards the project, which will pay for computer software.

She said: "I also want to create some sort of tactile image so you would have to touch it, raised and body formed.

"I want to use my painting and map-making techniques with what the computer can do."