Where My Ideas Come From

People often ask me where my drawing ideas come from. The truth is, I don’t really have a dramatic backstory or a perfectly neat explanation. Most of the time, the ideas just… appear. Sometimes I wake up with a brand-new concept.

Ideas usually show up when my mind is quiet or, even more often, when it’s bored. It’s in those in-between moments that nothing much is happening, but somehow a strange image or scene will bubble up and demand to be drawn.

Spending time in nature helps too. I’m endlessly fascinated by the way light and shadow play among branches, rocks, and moss. Those stark contrasts and unexpected silhouettes nudge my imagination awake and often seed the surreal compositions you see in my work.

When it comes to my landscape drawings, most of what you see is imagined. I’ll gather several reference photos, often taken by me during hikes or visits to wild places, and weave them into a single scene. I might overlay a rocky outcrop from one photo with the tree line from another, then add flocks of birds soaring overhead to capture the feeling I had in that moment. The final composition isn’t a literal map but a collage of impressions: the smells, the breezes, the quiet awe I felt on the trail.

Of course, I’m also inspired by other artists, not the old masters so much as the bold, quirky worlds of comic artists and graphic novelists. Their inventive layouts and playful distortions remind me there’s no limit to what you can dream up on the page.

Overall, I have more ideas than time to draw them all, some I drop as quickly as they arrive, while others stick around, demanding attention. The really good ones are too exciting to wait, so I sketch them right away, bumping them up in my schedule to make room for that burst of inspiration.

So, in the end, my ideas are a mix of quiet moments, wild places, and a dash of comic-book weirdness. There’s no formula, just an open mind ready to catch whatever image bubbles up next.