The mind's eye.

Dreams, sleeping dreams I mean, are fugitive and hard to pin down. Many
people believe that our dream experiences are real, and in the sense
that they open a path to our subconscious and the collective
subconscious, they are very important.

When I mentioned "dreamers of dreams", I meant not sleeping dreams,
but that most vital aspect of the true artist, visualising or
daydreaming.

Images, even from daydreaming, are clothed in mystery, and need
exploration and investigation to transform into art. Still, they are
all there, they come as a totality.

If we imagine a woman standing with her back to us, the imagination
holds her in fullness. But, if we want to know what her face looks
like, we cannot see that until we, in imagination, make her turn
around, or move around her. This is the creative aspect of the true
artist, to hold the images, and to dwell in the dream.

The experience of JK Rowlings the day she found the inspiration for the
world of Harry Potter, demonstrates this point. Her train was delayed
for hours, and she was allowed/forced to stay with the images that came
to her, to explore and to delve into this world, until it demonstrated
to her its own laws. She got fully formed characters, places, moods,
and events. All she had to do was to write it down. Mozart had similar
experiences. His manuscripts were written in one draft, with no
corrections or alterations.

So, as you say, you always have to use time to enhance what you put
down originally. Time, drawing on paper, and time, exploring the dream.
This dialogue between paper and fantasy is central. The one drives the
other, and to some extent the images on paper become as powerful as
those held in the imagination. Greatness lies in keeping the dream
alive. Don't let it fade, don't let it die, don't let it go. Even as
you paint, be the dream.

This is why it is vital to draw and paint exactly what we see. Because
until we can accurately render what we see in the real world, we can
never render what we see in the world of myth, memory, and imagination.

For a great artist to paint from real life requires a similar approach,
to see this world as a dream, held in pure consciousness, and to render
that with as much reverence as if it were a vision handed down from the
gods.

Ryno.