The out-of-the-box beautiful textile designer Kaffe Fassett wrote in one of his books that he goes to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to gather pattern ideas from the ceramics in their collection.
Ceramics = ideas for knitting?
Yes. Cross-polination is the cornerstone for creativity.
Want ideas for drawing? Go work in the garden.
Need to take your painting further? Finish your embroidery project.
Stuck on your comic? Read poetry.
This last one was very interesting for me. Andy Schmidt mentions it in this podcast. What he says is that because poets have to be very structured in their thinking and economical with their words, it can act as a great learning ground for writing comics, where we have to always remember to not use so many words that it covers up all the art.
And me? Where do I find my inspiration? Old-school hardcover encyclopaedias!
(I have an Afrikaans one that was published in the sixties and I’m starting to think I need to seriously censor it. They use the k-word very casually)