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The Women of the Waq-Waq Tree

About project

Medium: Acrylic, goauche, water colour, and colour pencils

On the far away, bountiful island of Waq-Waq, an all female population is ruled by a queen. The women reproduce by growing on the Tree of Waq-Waq and, when grown enough, they drop to the ground emitting a cry that sounds like “Waq Waq!”

I’ve been fascinated by this story for a while now. Initially I had conceived my version of Waq-Waq as an embroidery but then realized that the level of detail I wanted would be best suited to paint.

I kept the basic structure of the tree from one of the few known paintings of the Waq-Waq Tree to exist and then added on my own women and border. I looked at illustrators like Kay Rasmus Nielsen and Dorothy Iannone to inspire myself from their whimsical approaches to colour and anatomy.