Where Do I Get My Inspiration?

I’m often asked where I get the inspiration for my collections. The honest answer is: almost anywhere!

Inspiration can come from a video I see on social media, a movie, a walk around my neighbourhood, a joke someone tells me, a description of a person, a special moment, a personal experience, or even a poem that stays with me. I never really know where the next idea will come from.

I also love creating my illustrations as collections of three. Sometimes the three pieces tell a little story; other times, they simply explore three different ways of expressing the same feeling or idea.

Here are a few examples of where some of my collections began.

Slow Moments of Love

The inspiration for the Slow Moments of Love collection came from a moment that truly touched my heart.

One day, while scrolling through videos from The Dodo, I came across the most beautiful clip of a sloth and her baby. What moved me most was not only their gentle bond, but also the relationship they had with a kind man who cared for them. They would visit him, allowing him to interact with them with such trust and peacefulness.

Sloths are native to my home country, Venezuela, and they remind me so much of the koalas here in Australia. In both places, people have a deep affection for these animals and a strong desire to protect and care for them.

That beautiful connection between animals and humans inspired me to create illustrations celebrating gentleness, trust, and love in its quietest moments.

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day has always been especially meaningful to me because I have two daughters.

This poster collection was inspired by them. Although they are now a pre-teen and a teenager, I have always talked with them about how complex the world can be for girls and women.

I believe it is important to celebrate International Women’s Day while also working toward a world free from bias, stereotypes, and discrimination, a world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive for girls and women everywhere.

From a young age, we can nurture strong and independent minds through thoughtful and empowering words. The quotes I chose for this collection are meant to encourage girls to believe in themselves, stand up for their rights, and move forward with confidence and courage.

Opposites Attract

For Valentine's Day, I created the Opposites Attract collection to celebrate those who fall in love with someone who seems completely different from them.

This collection was inspired by poetry—but in an interesting way, the process sometimes worked in reverse.

Sometimes I would discover a poem first and let its words inspire an illustration. For example, Emily Brontë’s Love and Friendship inspired an illustration about two very different people who care deeply for each other; one who listens and one who talks.

“Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree—”

For another illustration, Gabriela Mistral’s romantic poem Kisses inspired the idea of a loving couple and the intimacy of learning to love through another person.

And sometimes, I created the illustration first. I made an image of an interracial couple and then searched for a poem that captured the feeling behind it. That’s how I found E. E. Cummings’ beautiful i carry your heart with me:

“i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)”

I love this back-and-forth process between words and images. Sometimes the poem comes first; sometimes the illustration does.

A Bilingual Alphabet

My latest project is perhaps the most personal of all.

It was inspired by my own bilingual experience, as well as our experience as parents raising our daughters to speak Spanish while they live, attend school, and grow up surrounded by English.

Somewhere along the way, we naturally embraced the famous Spanglish, the creative mixing of two languages.

Rather than seeing this as something to correct, I wanted to celebrate the linguistic creativity and cognitive flexibility that comes with growing up bilingual. That idea became a whole Spanish-English alphabet, combining two words and two illustrations into one playful collection.

It’s a project that is very close to my heart because it reflects not only language, but also identity, family, culture, and the beautiful experience of growing up between two worlds.

Inspiration Is Everywhere

These are just a few examples of how an idea can become a collection of cards, posters, calendars, and gifts.

The more I create, the more I find myself drawn to children, family, language, culture, emotions, and the little moments that make life meaningful.

Sometimes inspiration arrives as a fully formed idea. Other times, it starts with a single image, a sentence, a memory, or a feeling, and slowly becomes something I can draw.

That is one of my favourite parts of creating: you never quite know where an idea will take you.

If you’d like to see how these ideas become finished products, you can explore more of my illustrations, cards, gifts, and collections in the MGPhos Creations store.

Cheers, and talk to you soon!