Diving for Ideas

foeshel
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Last month I didn’t plan to participate in Inktober.

I was just drawing.

I had the urge to make three illustrations that connected to each other. A small trilogy about searching for something. Or maybe about trying to understand what happens in my head when I go looking for a new idea.

A black and white ink illustration of a man in a suit with a red tie standing on grassy ground above a deep black void filled with skulls, bones, and tangled roots. A skeletal figure climbs upward from the darkness while a shadowy creature with a glowing eye watches from the right side.

The first drawing set the tone.

A horizontal composition.

Me in a suit, suitcase in hand, ready for business.

Standing on the surface.

Beneath me a dark mass, a heavy void, and somewhere inside that void all the forgotten things I once tried to make. Old ideas that died quietly over the years. Some were still visible. Others were swallowed by time, covered in roots, cracked, and merged into the environment.

It felt like I was diving into my own creative graveyard.

Two close-up details from the illustration. The first shows the man with a red tie walking past a single flower. The second shows a dark, furry monster with a glowing eye watching over several skulls half-buried in the ground.

A vertical ink illustration of a man with a red tie walking away into a hallway made of skulls, skeletons, twisted roots, and flowers. The left side is dark and dense with remains, while the right side opens into bright empty space, symbolizing a search through inner memories and old ideas.

The second illustration shifted the perspective.

Still black and white. Still quiet. Still searching.

The composition was vertical, but I wasn’t descending. I was walking forward, away from the viewer, deeper into a hallway inside myself.

The corridor was lined with the remains of old thoughts. Artworks that never made it. Concepts that fell apart. Small skeletons wrapped in roots. Flowers growing through eye sockets. All of it woven into my inner structure.

A place built out of everything I left behind.

Two close-up details from the hallway illustration. One shows the man from behind holding a suitcase and walking into the distance. The other shows a cluster of skulls, skeletal figures, and roots intertwined with blooming flowers.

A surreal black and white ink illustration of a man with a red tie sitting on a mound of skulls and roots, sketchbook in hand, looking up at a glowing floating skull with tentacle-like appendages in a dark circular void. The scene symbolizes discovering a living idea in the darkness.

And then came the third one.

A spark.

A living idea waiting in the dark.

Not a memory or a corpse, but something breathing.

I took off my coat, sat down, pulled out my tools, and started drawing. A quiet moment. A small victory. That feeling when you finally find something worth working on.

Two close-up details from the inspiration illustration. The first shows the man sitting and drawing, coat hanging behind him. The second shows the floating skull with tentacles inside the dark void, surrounded by twisted roots and bones.

It wasn’t until later, when I looked at the Inktober prompts for 2025, that everything clicked.

These three drawings matched perfectly with some of the themes.

And since I had energy left and momentum on my side, I decided to join Inktober after all. My theme stayed the same. Black and white ink. One red accent. Clean and focused.

Meanwhile, life didn’t slow down.

I was working on the house, putting up insulation for the winter. That job was heavier than expected. Screws, dust, cutting panels, lifting, fitting everything together. Combine that with my regular job, and the month turned into something intense.

Because of that pressure, the meaning of these drawings shifted.

The dive felt heavier.

The hallway felt longer.

The spark felt more like survival than inspiration.

But that part needs its own space.

I’ll go deeper into it in another blog, where I’ll talk about how these illustrations changed once life pressed me against the edges.

For now, I’m happy these three pieces became the foundation for my Inktober.

A journey down, through, and forward.

A small trilogy that reminded me that ideas don’t just appear.

Sometimes you walk past the old ones, step over the dead ones, and keep going until something alive finally stirs.

Diving for Ideas

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