The Brainstormer (Read a history of The Brainsormer here.)

The Psychic Sidekick

Directors Bureau Idea Generator

Michael Nobbs‘ 75 ways to Draw More and Draw Your Life

Doug Chayka’s sketchbooks

A methodology for creating new ideas (written by professional illustrator Nate Williams)

An extensive list of ideation tools

Keith Haring knew that anything worth drawing once was worth drawing a hundred times.

I like to go to movies and draw in the dark. And I love love love blind gesture drawing.

Join the BookMooch Journal Project (or just browse their blog or their Flickr pool) or 1001 Journals

Participate in the quarterly Worldwide Sketch Crawl Day.

Illustration Friday suggests a new topic once a week!

Following are some idea-generation links oriented toward writers, but they could just as easily apply to image-makers.

No one cares what you had for lunch.

Idea Generator Blog Writing Prompts

Googobs of Creative Writing Prompts

Now rock out with your socks out.

Related Posts
How (and Why) to Title Your Work (Includes some prompts to help you create interesting titles.)
Project Idea: Object Sketchbook

He’s, I don’t know, maybe medium-sized, you know, average height, with short brown hair. I think he wears glasses. Eyes? Maybe bluish-brownish. Kinda dark, but, you know, not like dark dark. He was kinda funny-lookin’.

Whatcher is available at aka gallery in Oklahoma City. Detail views here and here.

The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles blog has posted a profile of me and my work. Click here to read it.
Thank you, SILA, for providing your members with an online gallery, and helping the public get to know us a little better.

Smorgasbord by Flickr user CharlesFred. Click image to visit on Flickr.

Say it with me, illustrators: “Photo references are good. Use them.” Using references is not copying, it is not cheating. Image references are tools. What’s an easy way to make sure you’re not trodding on another artist’s toes? Search within the Creative Commons.

What is Creative Commons? The Creative Commons license is a legal way for creators to easily share their content with the public. It is not a negation of copyright. There are different kinds of licenses depending on the type of content (music, images, literature, software, and so on) and how the creator wishes to share this material. I release my work under a Creative Commons license (there’s a link over in the left column of this page) because I believe that information and influence should (and do) flow freely among creators. The license does not prevent me from earning income from my art. I still own what I make. Creative Commons makes it easier for me to share it with others. You can read more about Creative Commons here.

Even with the Creative Commons license, copyright and usage is a slippery slope. When in doubt, contact the creator, ask permission, and give them credit.

The Flickr Creative Commons search is a fantastic tool for finding photo references for drawing, painting, illustration, or the medium of your choice. You need a Flickr account to use it – it’s easy to sign up. Click on the word “Search” in the upper right-hand corner, then click on “Advanced Search.” Enter your search terms and parameters, then scroll down to the bottom of the search form, where you will find the Creative Commons box. Click “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content.” And go. You can also browse by license.

UPDATE: Here’s a tip from optimization expert Tim Ferriss. Do a Creative Commons search on Flickr, then sort the results by “Most Interesting.” You’ll get the best images first.

The Flickr Commons (sounds the same, but isn’t) is another bountiful image resource. Here are some goodies I found there.

My collaborative sketchbook pal Karo recently posted her favorite Flickr groups for gathering collage material. They are Collage Images, Vintage Illustration, and Mid-Century Illustrated. These groups collect and display images that are old enough to be public domain, or with no known copyright restrictions. Some of the images in the Collage pool are contemporary creations whose owners have provided them for use by others. The ownership of certain original ephemera objects (which are scanned and uploaded to Flickr) are sometimes in question, but this community of artists (usually) acts responsibly in investigating and attributing the sources of these images. Here is a discussion thread on that topic.

These are just a few of the tools artists can use to build their photo reference library. (Beware, your collection will grow when you’re not looking. Mine takes up a full filing cabinet.)

Related:
Figurative Collage set on Flickr
Great anatomical reference site
Winston Smith, collage artist
Lawrence Lessig, copyright reform guru

Illustration of cafeteria cherry pie by Maira Kalman, from her New York Times column And The Pursuit of Happiness. See below for links to Kalman’s column.

At Ease, Kalman’s latest installment of her New York Times column.
Read Kalman’s latest column here.
Order The Illustrated Elements of Style here.
Check out some more of Maira Kalman’s many illustrated books.

Romy, pigma micron on Rives BFK, 22 x 28 inches, 2009. Click image to see it on Flickr.

This portrait of romy owens (whom you may have read about here) was created for the Seeing Other People show earlier this year. This piece will also be in the 24 Works On Paper show.

Yes, it did take a long time, about 40 hours.

Special thanks to Kelsey Karper for getting the photo for me.

Cover illustration for Friskee Trax 4 compilation from Friskee Media. Ink on found paper, 2009. Click image to view larger.

My friend Josh Heilaman of Friskee Media commissioned this cover for the Friskee Trax Compilation vol. 4. Head on over to the Friskee site to sample the tasty beats buffet.

The original drawing is about 5 inches square, a marker drawing on an old map.

Alison Bechdel is the creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For. Her recent book, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, is a frank and tender deconstruction of her childhood and adolescence. It’s never easy to understand one’s parents from an adult perspective, and Bechdel uses Fun Home to explore her father’s identity through fresh eyes.

Note: If you are reading this blog (and watching the videos) in Firefox, good for you! (If not, please switch browsers right away. You won’t regret it.) Since you are a savvy Firefox user, you might benefit from the Flashblock plugin, which reduces the load time for web pages with embedded videos.

This is your brain on vacation.

As you may have read, I have a piece in the Society of Illustrators Annual 51. The show for the Book and Editorial categories has opened, and I’ll be attending the awards night this Friday, February 6th, with friends and family.

Other things I plan to do in New York include:
Walking a lot
Eating a lot, for example, at Sakagura
Attending the Society’s weekly Jazz & Sketch night on Thursday
Catching the end of the James Jean show Kindling at Johnathan LeVine Gallery
And maybe getting a haircut

Ciao!

p.s. Thanks to Shanna at Blue 7 for helping me find something respectable to wear.

Anonymous Niece, acrylic and colored pencil on Rives BFK, 2009. Click image to see full-size.

To learn more about Illustration Friday, click here.

Anonymous Niece was created for Seeing Other People, a show of contemporary portraiture by Oklahoma Artists. The show hangs in the OKC Underground Invited Artists Gallery from January to April 2009. There will be an opening reception this coming Thursday, January 22, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Please join us!

To create this fictional portrait, I worked from several photographic sources. My primary source was a picture I found in a stack of old family photos. There is no information on the photograph identifying the subject, just the name of the portrait studio: Jamiesons Studios, 3A High Street, Wrexham. (A quick search tells me that Wrexham is in northeast Wales, the country my family came from two generations ago. So it is likely the girl in the photograph is a distant relative.)

Following is a list of movies I listened to (on headphones, from my portable dvd player) while I worked on Anonymous Niece.

A Room With a View

Ballets Russes

Warming By the Devil’s Fire

Charlie Wilson’s War

Chicago

Pride and Prejudice (episode 1)