Julia Marshall's Article "Thinking Outside the Box: Creativity and Inquiry in Art Practice"

I just read Julia Marshall's article on thinking outside the box.  She presents 4 steps in creative thinking: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.  While these are a great logical way of breaking down the steps of creative thinking, I believe that thinking outside the box is about expanding on information that is already there.  This can mean mining history to make connections between what you are doing now.  I guess that for me, this is the best way that I know how to think outside the box. As an illustrator, when I am trying to solve a compositional challenge, I like to look to illustrator's work who have come before me like, Charles Gibson, Lisbeth Zwerger, or Sterling Hundley for inspiration.  When I can apply what I have learned in new ways, then I feel as though I have entered that radiant territory of "thinking outside the box."

Thinking outside the box can include:
1. Researching and making connections between the past and present
2. Investigating materials and thinking about new ways of applying them (for example, the artist who   might paint with coffee grounds)
3. Revisiting questions of inquiry and materials over and over again to create new connections that are informed by new information