Often I am asked where I get the ideas from for my work/textures etc. All of the techniques I use are time honored that have been used in art, sculpture and crafts since man was painting on walls in caves, indeed I have to date, not found any woodturner or maker that is not using such techniques or variations of.
How concepts and designs are compiled is also time honored through the structure/principles of the 'creative/design process' being used in just about all industries from cars, hoovers to producing the packaging that entices us to buy a product.
Something I hear often is 'nothing is new' which I have to say really grinds my wick. Concepts and techniques 'may' not be new within our field but unique designs and ideas are still out there for us to create, it is happening in industry and other design fields every day.
For my work I tap into many sources of reference/inspiration, industry, food, nature, history, music, art to name a minute sample. One of the sources that I am concentrating on at the moment are textures found in nature, in particular from macro photographs I take and pictures from scientific microscopes available in reference books and online.
below are a few pictures that I have taken over the years of shells.
Being able to see textures and ideas in things around us is a skill that is very useful.
There are numerous books on the subject but some that you may fond interesting were written in the early 70s by Kurt Rowland 'Visual Education and Beyond' and his series on 'Looking and seeing' shapes around us/development of shape etc.
These books are now out of print but can still be found on amazon second hand if you search.