Getting Inspired — Koosje Koene

How do you come up with ideas? It’s a question people ask me often about my weekly Draw Tip Tuesday videos.
You can’t just sit around and wait for an idea to come to you. Picasso said it well: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
But the work doesn’t need to feel like “work” - make it as effortless and fun as you can, so you can dive right into the creative flow.

Look around you

Ideas can be found anywhere. Even simply inside your home. When I don’t know what to draw, I just draw whatever is available: my feet, the tea pot, the dirty dishesl… anything goes!

If you’re looking for ideas outside of your home, keep it simple too. Look at the shadows and reflections caused by the sunlight.
When doing groceries, take a close look at the fresh produce. Smell it. Open up your senses. Look at the people around you. Talk with them. Often, just with a little bit of chit-chat, you can learn a lot about or from someone. And even if it’s not instantly, that minute of small-talk can give you (big) ideas.

Read books

You can find a certain topic you’d like to learn more about. Read all about it, study. But reading is also very relaxing – I love it when it’s hard to put a book down because of its suspense! And I love how different writers have such different styles in writing and use of words. Every book is a different adventure. I am lucky to be able to read both in Dutch and English, so the choice is even bigger. And sometimes just one sentence can spark a completely unrelated idea!

Find Inspiration online

I will be the first to admit that I am addicted to Instagram. It’s just something about the visual format, so easy to scroll and see a lot of different art styles. I follow a couple of hundred people on instagram – all artists. Often I wonder about the tools or techniques they use, and I’ll find out more about it through their websites. Then I’ll try mimicking it, if I want to learn how they approach a certain style or subject. Isn’t it amazing that we have an infinite library of art online, that we can explore, and learn from every day?
BUT! Limit yourself on the Instagram time, because before you know it, you’ll have spent all your precious drawing time scrolling instead of making art.
I even put a limit on my phone - I get an alert when I have reached my maximum scrolling time, because it’s very easy to keep scrolling mindlessly.

Google the old masters - the internet is one big museum! Just the other day, I followed an online class taught by Melanie Reim and Veronica Lawlor. It was all about mark making and color, and they reminded me of mark making masters, and how you can get ideas for your sketchbook, just by looking at their use of colors and marks. Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Raoul Dufy, Albrecht Durer, David Hockney and of course Van Gogh and Rembrandt.

Be curious!

If you follow artists online that you admire, try to find out more about how they work, how they come up with ideas.
Have a chat with that new neighbor, they might have an interesting story.
Ask questions, always.
Buy a product (and I don’t just mean art supplies!) you never bought before and try it.
Find a recipe you’ve never tried before.
Call a friend to ask how they’re doing and what they’re up to at the moment.

Don’t try to come up with ideas

If you can’t sleep, it doesn’t help to tense up and think ‘I need to sleep, I need to sleep!’. It only makes things worse. If you don’t have ideas or inspiration, then thinking ‘I need to come up with a great idea’ doesn’t help either. Just do any (or all) of the tips above, and even if it’s not immediately (some things need to simmer for a while), you will see that ideas will pop up!