Where do ideas come from?

How do artists generate ideas for their work?

The first part of my process is, getting outside, gathering information and references. I like to get to know a place, walk it, experience it, sit a while, let it soak in, and after a while, only then, I might get a sketchbook out.

Sketching in the mountains. Photo Caroline Beck

Travelling light, I usually head into the hills with just some sheets of drawing paper or a smallish sketchbook and a selection of drawing materials. I often make very quick sketches, trying to capture the experience of the place rather than the view. These sketches help me to access my memory of the place once I get back to the studio.

Back in the studio, I might make dozens of small studies, sketches and explorations, each one of them helping me to get a little deeper into knowing what it is I want to say about a place.

Eventually, a theme, a thought, a painting, emerges, not forced, rather recollected.