art journal: old friend, new art

A journal is like a second brain but also a peek into the owner's heart. wonder | wander | women love filling our notebooks with words, scraps and sketches. These journals aren't toys or hobbies - they are our lives and thoughts, set down on paper as they pass through our mind.

capturing colour

In art school, wonder | wander | women learned colour theory: how colours work together and how they can affect our perceptions and even our moods. 

"Plane Air" mini painting no. 1

sketch in the city

Seems to wonder | wander | women like the times are getting rougher and tougher. It's been hard to work at home with all these worries whirling through our heads.

Art, as always, soothes our anxiety. Without too much planning, we pick up a trusty waterproof pen and our favourite paint. Simple doodles with pure colours are best: pick one colour from the palette and let your drawing grow around it.

cozy indoor drawing

wonder | wander | women spent the weekend hunkered down as Storm Darragh rampaged through the UK, bringing driving rain and wind speeds of up to 50kph. It brought back memories of bagyo (typhoons) back home...at least we didn't lose power here, so we spent the weekend playing cosily at home instead of our usual walks and errands.

there goes the sun...

Learning the secret magic of painting

wonder | wander | women love filling their hands with work and their eyes with art. That's why we love the current era where no one has to pay a fortune to learn how to paint or draw. 

Wonder Woman captures Loki over Bryant Park in NYC 

art & empire on our shores

"What are the categories in which people imagine nature, history, place, war that make these two wars, nuclear and Native, so invisible?" ~ Rebecca Solnit, Savage Dreams

Election season in my two homelands bring to the forefront two wars - between colonizer trauma and human bias. 

an exploration of two landscapes

Our political foundation was built on the Marcos declared dictatorship - a historical event that took place in the Philippines, where we grew up and where hundreds of students and unarmed civilians were disappeared, tormented, and tortured during the decades long, power hungry, thievery of the conjugal couple Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos under Martial Law from September 1972 to January 1981. 

the art of life: character design

wonder | wander | women have a new project! It's good to get back into drawing for comics again. Of course every project, especially one that tells a story, naturally comes with a slew of research.

Mermay 2024

Last year wonder | wander | women jumped into the joyful ocean community that was Mermay, an art and animation competition created by Disney animator Tom Bancroft, who also created Mushu from Mulan.

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A post shared by MerMay (@mermay_official)

planner art

wonder | wander | women love art journaling! Scrapbooking, watercolour, doodles and urban sketching, whatever it is, we want to try it. But over the past few years we noticed the trend of artistic planners, from Hobonichi to bullet journaling, and last year we finally decided to try it.

I used bullet journals for almost a decade, but aside from a single highlighter, a few stickers, and the occasional doodle when I didn't have my sketchbook, my planner was very basic. I preferred to keep art in my journals and sketchbooks. But watching others draw and paint in their planners, I really wanted to see if I would enjoy it too.

botanical watercolours

The study of plants is an ancient science, and as with the oldest sciences, was tied to the mysteries of nature and the body. It was considered essential for anyone of learning to study and record plants and the way they grew. Even children in today's schools are encouraged to draw the parts of flowers and try to grow their own plants from seeds.

Botanical illustration therefore is one of the oldest uses of art. It is both art and science, a study and an appreciation of the beauty of nature. With our eyes and hands, we are analysing the structure of a living thing. Using ink and paint, we are learning to understand a growing thing from the outside in.

the art of MerMay

This year Disney is bringing the live-action version of its classic The Little Mermaid to theatres! This is one of wonder | wander | women's favourite fairytales, and for a long time we have been dreaming of telling our own version, set in medieval Islamic Spain - the grand era of the Alhambra and the palaces of Seville and Cordoba.

art process: testing pens

Every illustrator has their favourite medium, and mine is pen and ink. I love the fluid colours of digital art and the temperamental, surprising whims of watercolour, but my heart belongs to the simple beauty of the ink line. 

"The Dot and the Line: A Romance in

Lower Mathematics", Chuck Jones, 1965

the heART of Spring

It has been a hard winter and a cold, wet spring. Despite the joyful work we do on our lives every day, there are times when we feel a little resentful, heartsick and lonely.

Robin in diary

sacred geometry

Ever since we visited the Alhambra in Spain, we've been obsessed with the patterns of Islamic tradition. The calculation and creation of these mathematically precise patterns was a mystery to us. 

Tile pattern from the Alhambra,
from AlhambradeGranada.org

Kusama at all hallows

wonder | wander | women had the best time this Halloween at the KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature exhibition - set exclusively in New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in the Bronx. 

steps spilling over with pumpkins & gourds - [3] Mertz Gallery

"The Garden is uniquely suited to present this once-in-a-lifetime display of Yayoi Kusama’s work for our visitors. An exceptional selection of work invites visitors into her universe, to consider her practice through her unique vision of the natural world."

Kusama: Cosmic Nature at NYBG, 2021

"Our subtitle, 'Cosmic Nature,' references her bold investigations of materiality, media, color, form, and pattern that proliferate into an expansive sense of becoming with the cosmos. We are thrilled to mount this focused survey of the work of one of the most influential artists of our time." ~  Carrie Rebora Barratt, NYBG President 

Kusama: Cosmic Nature, NYBG

Legendary artist Yayoi Kusama is a global sensation. She has paved the way for minimalism, pop art, performance art, and immersive art installations. Her radical works featuring pumpkins, flowers, polka dots, loops, and mirrors - excavating ideas of self-obliteration, fear, and infinity - have attracted massive audiences to prestigious art institutions around the world.

inspirations

Lately wonder | wonder | women are back into the creative groove. We're in the throes of some really exciting work. But it suddenly reminded us...

There are people we'd love to share this work with who are now gone. People who inspired and shaped us, who in some way had a hand in making this work too. 

We want to sit down with them, have a cup of coffee or some wine, say "Look at this! What do you think?" and hear what they have to say.

We can no longer invite ourselves over for dinner or merienda. We can't call them and hear their laughter. But we can put our memories of them into our work.

Some of the people we lost were mentors and fellow artists. Some of them didn't practice art but were supportive and warm people that we drew strength from.

With art, we can say "I miss you", "Thank you", or "I hope you like this". We can share it with other people who loved them and say "Don't you think they would enjoy this?" "Do you remember when we went to see this artist (or this movie)?"

Author Terry Pratchett in his book Reaper Man wrote, “No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.”

The people we loved are departed, but we still love them and are grateful for their gifts and the time we spent with them.

home school

At the beginning of lockdown it seemed like everyone was focused on learning something. Banana and sourdough bread, painting classes, new languages... people stuck at home wanted something new to occupy their minds.

Japanese vocabulary with Duolingo

indoor adventures: #inktember

It's been a very busy few months project-wise! But wonder | wander | women couldn't resist the new art challenge that popped up this year. Instead of drawing through the month of October, I celebrated my birth month by drawing for Inktember instead.

Butterflies

Peace Fountain at St John the Divine

wonder | wander | women travel back in time to the last tour we were on together, St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City. We arrived early and spent some time in the sculpture garden beside the cathedral, home of the famous Peace Fountain.

The fountain was created by sculptor Greg Wyatt, artist-in-residence at St. John the Divine, in 1985. A gorgeous bronze edifice, it mixes mythological symbols with science: Michael defeats Satan over figures of the sun and moon, but there are also giraffes, crabs and a DNA helix to symbolise life.

birthday spirits

It's a wonder | wander | women birthday post! Mom celebrated her birthday a few days ago and it's our tradition that I draw or paint her something for her birthday. Our favourite motif is the divine figure of the bodhisattva from Thai Buddhist art or the diwata of Philippine folklore.