"How do you know what to draw?"

I get asked questions like this a lot-- by artists and non-artists alike. Creativity is a fickle beast of a thing, and how exactly it works remains a mystery for the ages. But what I can tell you is this: right now, on the beautiful morning of December 14th, I've got a list of things to draw with 20+ ideas on it. And if I'm very focused, I might get around to about 5 of them before I come up with 20 more that I like better.

Because here's the thing: ideas are like cockroaches. Where there's one, there's always more.

Ideas are frequently depicted as bubbles (cartoon thought bubbles, mainly, which is a loose application of the word "bubble", but I digress). I don't particularly like that image. Because bubbles are self-contained-- and once they pop, you're left with nothing.

In order to understand the reality of creative thought, you need to think about the structure of the brain. Synapses, right? A neural network of bridges connected by thoughts and associations built over a lifetime of experience. A whole treasure trove of thoughts and ideas buried in our memories like sunken ships-- and sometimes all we need to access those is a little inspiration: a light bulb to illuminate those hidden corners of our minds, if you will.

The initial idea is usually sparked by something external, though not always. When I first started my daily sketch series, I did a quick painting based off of a dream. More recently, my fairytale pieces (which are a whole different blog post, mainly because I refuse to make a statement about my gorgeous, flowery fairytale ladies under the title Cockroach Idea Generation Machine™) were inspired by some of the tattoo artists I follow on Instagram, Vitaly Morozov and Isnard Barbosa-- check them out, they'll rock your world. From there, the initial idea unlocks a multitude of associations, and the more effort you put into traveling that network, the more ideas you'll come up with, and those will unlock more of their own-- and suddenly, through that lens, 20+ ideas on my list doesn't seem like all that many.

This is also why it's important to constantly engage yourself with external stimuli, and why it's often advantageous to have other people as sounding boards for your ideas. The more that you engage with other art, music, movies, and the natural world, the more it can be used as fuel to generate these idea nexuses. And when you use other people as a sounding board, you get an entirely new approach and a thought process different from your own. 

I love hearing about how people come up with their ideas, and how those ideas manifest to them-- because it's an individual experience to everyone. In college I had a painting professor whose paintings were always inspired by his dreams. One of my art jam buddies (we hang out and do art together) likes to randomly generate a prompt for a character design using a deck of cards with traits listed on them. Some people put pencil to paper, start drawing shapes, and let those marks lead the way. My partner at work likes to come up with tongue twisters and rhymes made up of unaffiliated genres, then challenges himself with translating them visually.

My ideas usually come from stories and characters, and they manifest as a visual impression. Sometimes it's a composition, sometimes it's a color scheme. Sometimes it's just a feeling that I want to evoke-- and sometimes I've got the whole thing planned out from the get-go. The process of creation is organic, constantly evolving-- and regardless of how something starts, the important part is the journey-- laying down marks, reacting to those marks, making decisions on instinct based on what I see.

Art isn't a product of manufacturing. There's rarely a hard blueprint for where each mark will go, what colors will mix. Art is actually a byproduct of internal alchemy-- that process of ignition that travels the neural network and frequently leaves you somewhere unexpected. It's exciting-- it's an adrenaline rush-- and my enjoyment of that process is why I never burn out on what I do, and why I never run out of ideas.