Drawers and Explorers: How we Travel
An introduction to Draw Closer and the ways we travel.
On slowing down, paying attention, and allowing space for something meaningful to emerge.
Written by Angie Wilton
20th January 2026
Coffee, conversations and sketches at Kinosaki Onsen
When we travel, we tend to lean in different directions.
Sometimes, we are drawn to connection through encounter. We move through landscapes, follow threads of history, culture and place, and allow understanding to form through walking, conversation and shared experience. These are the moments when we travel as Explorers.
At other times, we are drawn to connection through attention. We linger. We return to the same street at different times of day. We sit, watch, draw, write, notice. Understanding forms slowly, through repetition and care. These are the moments when we travel as Drawers.
Neither way is better.
Most of us move between the two.
Draw Closer is an invitation to travel more thoughtfully.
Quiet contemplation and drawing at Okunoin cemetery
Much of what will draw people to Draw Closer is not a desire to escape everyday life, but a desire to step out of its constant demands for a short while.
Many of the women who travel with us arrive from busy, full lives. They are thoughtful, capable, often carrying responsibility for others. They come not because they are lost, but because they are full. Full of work, of care, of decision-making, of noise. What they are seeking is not reinvention, but space.
Space to slow down.
Space to notice themselves again.
Space to just be.
Kyoto commute
We work with small groups by design. Intimacy changes everything. In a small group, it becomes possible to arrive as you are, rather than who you need to be. There is time to listen, to be quiet, to speak without competing for space. Friendships form gently, through shared experience rather than forced connection.
Drawing plays a quiet but important role in this. You do not need to be “good at it”. You do not need to show anyone what you make. For us, drawing is simply a way of paying attention. A way of being present. A way of allowing the mind to settle. It offers permission to be unfinished, to not know, to let something emerge without rushing it.
Just as important as what we include is what we leave out.
Our journeys are not packed with activity. There is rest. There are unstructured moments. There is time to wander alone, and time to come back together. We trust that what is meaningful cannot be scheduled too tightly.
At the heart of Draw Closer is a shared belief about what makes experiences meaningful.
We are two women with different ways of seeing, different histories, and different relationships to drawing and travel. What connects us is a long friendship, a deep respect for each other’s practices, and a shared belief that the most profound experiences often arise when we allow ourselves to slow down enough to notice them.
Together, we create the journey.
What each woman takes from it is her own.
Honor and Angie
We have been friends since kindergarten.
We grew up together in Melbourne, sharing our formative years as we slowly found our way along different paths. Honor was always drawn to a creative path, with a poetic and intuitive way of seeing the world. Angie, by contrast, has always enjoyed organising, initiating, and shaping ideas into form.
Creativity has threaded through our friendship in different ways. Honor through fine art and writing. Angie through music, design and entrepreneurial work. Over time, these different ways of working have found a natural rhythm, moving between reflection and action.
Draw Closer has grown naturally from this long history. It is held by trust, shaped by contrast, and grounded in a belief that meaningful experiences are made through care, attention and time.